Your privacy is in safe paws!
Who we are
Autism Assistance Dogs Ireland (AADI) values your privacy. We are committed to protecting your personal information. This policy sets out how AADI uses the information that you provide us with in order to help us achieve our mission of transforming the lives of autistic children.
What data we collect
AADI processes personal data about people who help us fulfil our mission including:
- Supporters and prospective supporters (which includes people who have demonstrated an interest in our cause by contacting us for information about our products, services, or campaigns)
- People who have pledged their lifetime interest
- Clients
- Prospective clients
- Dog/puppy Fosterers
- Employees and Staff
- Suppliers
- Veterinarians
- Volunteers
- Visitors to AADI
- Other supporters and advocates for AADI
This list is not exhaustive and may be added to from time to time as the nature of our services or operations change.
How we collect your data
We get data about you from you when you:
- Contact or visit us (in person, via mail, email, social media e.g. facebook, twitter).
- For purposes of applying for an Autism Assistance Dog
- For purposes of engaging to foster a dog/puppy,
- When you donate to AADI or sponsor a puppy,
- Engage with our campaigns (via mail, email, social media e.g. Facebook, X), or our fundraising services,
- or when we complete a business transaction with you as a supplier of products or services,
- or when you apply for a position or come to work or volunteer for this organisation.
AADI will only process (use and store) your personal information if we have asked you and have a record of your express, recent consent for us to do so. We will not distribute or sell your data to a 3rd party or use it in any other way than by which it was freely given.
How we use your data
We process people’s data for several purposes including:
- Client placements (Assistance, Companion & Released dogs): processing and managing applications to find suitable homes and dog-client matches for our dogs, including home visits.
- Dog/puppy Fostering: processing and management of our fosterers and applications to foster our dogs/puppies, including home visits.
- Human Resource Management for Employees and volunteers, including payroll and training records
- Communication and donor care: communicating with and maintaining our relationships with our donors, sponsors, supporters, and clients, including processing tax relief information for donors.
- Campaign management, communicating with and recruiting new donors, sponsors, and other supporters.
- Managing relationships with people who wish to leave a legacy to AADI in their estate.
- Contract and invoice management.
- Scheduling and managing outreach services i.e. awareness events.
This list is not exhaustive and may be added to from time to time as the nature of our services or operations change.
What are Cookies?
Cookies are text files placed on your computer to collect standard Internet Log information and visitor behaviour information. When you visit our websites, we may collect information from you automatically through cookies or similar technology.
Types of Cookies used
There are a number of different types of cookies, however our website uses:
Advertising – Our charity uses these cookies to collect information about your visit to our website, the content you viewed, the links you followed and information about your browser, device, and your IP address. – We use these cookies so we can evaluate and improve user experience.
Functionality – Our charity uses these cookies so that we recognise you on our website and remember your previously selected preferences. These could include what language you prefer and locations you are in. A mix of first party and third party cookies are used.
How we use Cookies
AADI uses cookies in a range of ways to improve your experience on our website including:
- Keeping you signed in
- Understanding how you use our website.
- Account related cookies – If you create an account with us then we will use cookies for the management of the signup process and general administration. These cookies will usually be deleted when you log out however in some cases they may remain afterwards to remember your site preferences when logged out.
- Login related cookies – We use cookies when you are logged in so that we can remember this fact. This prevents you from having to log in every single time you visit a new page. These cookies are typically removed or cleared when you log out to ensure that you can only access restricted features and areas when logged in.
- Email newsletters related cookies – This site offers newsletter or email subscription services and cookies may be used to remember if you are already registered and whether to show certain notifications which might only be valid to subscribed/unsubscribed users.
- Orders processing related cookies – This site offers e-commerce or payment facilities and some cookies are essential to ensure that your order is remembered between pages so that we can process it properly.
- Forms related cookies – When you submit data to through a form such as those found on contact pages or comment forms cookies may be set to remember your user details for future correspondence.
- Site preferences cookies – In order to provide you with a great experience on this site we provide the functionality to set your preferences for how this site runs when you use it. In order to remember your preferences we need to set cookies so that this information can be called whenever you interact with a page is affected by your preferences.
Third Party Cookies
In some special cases we also use cookies provided by trusted third parties. The following section details which third party cookies you might encounter through this site.
- This site uses Google Analytics which is one of the most widespread and trusted analytics solution on the web for helping us to understand how you use the site and ways that we can improve your experience. These cookies may track things such as how long you spend on the site and the pages that you visit so we can continue to produce engaging content.
For more information on Google Analytics cookies, see the official Google Analytics page. - From time to time we test new features and make subtle changes to the way that the site is delivered. When we are still testing new features these cookies may be used to ensure that you receive a consistent experience whilst on the site whilst ensuring we understand which optimisations our users appreciate the most.
- Facebook Pixel is used to improve the efficiency of our social media marketing and to better track results. For more information on Facebook Pixel please visit https://developers.facebook.com/docs/facebook-pixel/implementation/gdpr/.
How to manage Cookies
You can set your browser not to accept cookies. Go to allaboutcookies.org for instructions on how to remove cookies from your browser. However, in a few cases, some of our website features may not function as a result.
AADI use Facebook Pixel, CAPI, Facebook Custom Audiences and Facebook Lookalike audiences to connect with our supporters in a more effective way, We balance our legitimate interest to use Facebook in this way with your data rights and encourage you to explore Facebook further:
When you open or log into your Facebook account you see the following:
By clicking Sign Up, you agree to our Terms. Learn how we collect, use and share your data in our Data Policy and how we use cookies and similar technology in our Cookie Policy. You may receive SMS notifications from us and can opt out at any time.
From here you can follow links to Facebook’s account terms, data policy and cookie policy. Following the policy links allows you to customise your account for example to see and control who you share your information with. For more information see: https://www.facebook.com/privacy/explanation
How long we keep your data
We will keep the personal data of supporters and customers for no longer than is deemed necessary, so this will depend on the purpose for which we process your data. We retain the personal data of suppliers for as long as is deemed relevant and legally necessary. We will retain the personal details of past, current or future employees in line with employment law.
Where do we keep your data
AADI uses servers hosted in Ireland and the UK. All transfers are fully encrypted and secure.
Who we share your data with
To help us communicate the work we are doing and provide these services. Categories of trusted service providers we use include fundraising agencies, data management (CRM) provider(s), email service providers, fundraising platform providers, electronic data analysis and marketing agencies.
AADI do not share, sell or swap your information with other organisations for their own marketing outside of our group.
In some circumstances it is necessary for AADI to give relevant staff at our service providers access to your personal information. This access is only granted to the extent necessary for them to perform their services for us. We require all service providers to comply with strict rules to protect the information you have given us.
What are your rights and who to contact
Individuals have rights over their personal data under EU law. These rights are not absolute, and some qualifications and restrictions do apply, particularly in relation to data that is required to be retained for audit or taxation purposes or where data falls into one of the categories that is excluded from data subject access requests. In summary your rights in relation to your data held by AADI are as follows:
- The right to withdraw consent at any time;
- Right of access – you have a right to access a copy of the data held about you by AADI;
- The right to know how long your personal data will be stored;
- The right to know the purposes of processing and the legal basis for same, and if any further processing is to be undertaken by the Controller for purposes other than that which the data was originally collected;
- Right to rectification/erasure/objection/portability/restrict processing – unless it is determined that AADI has an overriding need to retain your data, for example if we require it to meet tax audit requirements; you have a right to have errors corrected in the data we hold about you, you have the right to object to processing or restrict processing undertaken by AADI, you have the right to data portability, and upon request we shall erase all your personal data that we hold on you
- Right to refuse automated decision making and/or profiling. AADI does not engage in processing of this kind;
- Right to lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Commissioner (or equivalent supervisory authority in your country of habitual residence) – You can complain to the Data Protection Commissioner where you feel your rights have been infringed. Contact details are provided at the end of this Privacy Notice.
- AADI is committed to helping individuals exercise their rights. We will always balance our interests with your rights. If you have a query you can email us at info@aadi.ie or contact us though the other contact details above.
Changes to our Privacy Policy
Our charity keeps our Privacy policy under regular review and places any changes on this website. This policy was last updated on August 21st, 2024.
Contact Details for the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner
Telephone: +353 57 8684800 / +353(0)761 104 800 / Lo Call No. 1890 252 231
Email: info@dataprotection.ie
Address: Data Protection Commissioner, Canal House, Station Road, Portarlington, Co. Laois.
How to contact us
Address: Autism Assistance Dogs Ireland, 18a Euro Business Park, Little Island, Co. Cork T45 CR90
Telephone: 021 235 7107
Email: info@aadi.ie