Data Protection
The Data Protection Act 1998 imposes a legal duty on the Department to protect any personal information we collect from, or about, you. If you are a user with general public and anonymous access, the Department's website does not store or capture personal information, but merely logs the user's IP address which is automatically recognised by the web server.
The system will record your e-mail address and other information if volunteered to us by you. This shall be treated as proprietary and confidential. If you send us an e-mail or letter asking us for information that belongs to another department we may forward your request to that department for action and advise you that we have done so. We may also disclose, unless specifically advised not to do so, personal data to our consultants, agents and representatives when carrying out consultancy work on our behalf, in which case you will be advised that we are doing so, otherwise, we do not pass on any personal information you have given us to any other site. Information provided to us may be used for internal review and to notify you about updates to the website.
The Department takes data protection and freedom of information issues seriously. It takes care to ensure that any personal information supplied to it is dealt with in a way which complies with the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998. This means that any personal information you supply will be processed principally for the purpose for which it has been provided. However, the Department may also use it for other legitimate purposes in line with the Data Protection Act 1998 and Freedom of Information legislation.
The system will record your e-mail address and other information if volunteered to us by you. This shall be treated as proprietary and confidential. If you send us an e-mail or letter asking us for information that belongs to another department we may forward your request to that department for action and advise you that we have done so. We may also disclose, unless specifically advised not to do so, personal data to our consultants, agents and representatives when carrying out consultancy work on our behalf, in which case you will be advised that we are doing so, otherwise, we do not pass on any personal information you have given us to any other site. Information provided to us may be used for internal review and to notify you about updates to the website.
The Department takes data protection and freedom of information issues seriously. It takes care to ensure that any personal information supplied to it is dealt with in a way which complies with the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998. This means that any personal information you supply will be processed principally for the purpose for which it has been provided. However, the Department may also use it for other legitimate purposes in line with the Data Protection Act 1998 and Freedom of Information legislation.
These include:
- Administration of the Common Agricultural Policy and other aid schemes;
- The production and safety of food;
- Management of land and other environmental controls;
- Animal health and welfare;
- Occupational health and welfare;
- Compilation of statistics;
- Disclosure to other organisations when required to do so; and
- Disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 or the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 where such disclosure is in the public interest.
Our site provides links to other websites and as this statement only applies to our website you should always read the privacy statement/policy of any site you access that collects personal information.
Use of Cookies
When you enter the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development site, your computer will be automatically issued with a cookie, in order to collect non-personal user information required for system administration of the website.
Cookies are pieces of data created when you visit a site, and contain a unique, anonymous number. They are stored in a text file in the cookie directory of your hard drive, and do not expire at the end of your session. Cookies will not be used to collect any personal information about you and will not be used to identify an individual user.
The information that is supplied by cookies can help us better understand your needs in order to provide you with a better service and assist us to analyse the profile of our visitors.
You can set your browser not to accept cookies. If you do not know how to do this, you should visit the website of your browser manufacturer.