General statement
The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment fully respects your right to privacy, and will not collect any personal information about you on this website without your clear permission. Any personal information which you volunteer to this Department will be treated with the highest standards of security and confidentiality, strictly in accordance with the Data Protection Acts 1988 to 2018.
Collection and use of personal information
The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment does not collect any personal data about you on this website, apart from information which you volunteer (for example by e-mailing us, by completing our online Complaint Form or by using our online 'Contact Us' form). Any personal information which you provide in this way is not made available to any third parties, save as required by law, and is used by this Department only in line with the purpose for which you provided it.
Collection and use of technical information
Technical details in connection with visits to this website are logged by our internet service provider for our statistical purposes. No information is collected that could be used by us to identify website visitors. The technical details logged are confined to the following items:
- the IP address of the visitor’s web server
- the top-level domain name used (for example .ie, .com, .org, .net)
- clickstream data which shows the traffic of visitors around this web site (for example pages accessed and documents downloaded)
- the type of web browser used by the website visitor.
- the version of the operating system used by the visitor
The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment will make no attempt to identify individual visitors, or to associate the technical details listed above with any individual. It is the policy of the Department never to disclose such technical information in respect of individual website visitors to any third party (apart from our internet service provider, which records such data on our behalf and which is bound by confidentiality provisions in this regard), unless obliged to disclose such information by a rule of law. The technical information will be used only by this Department, and only for statistical and other administrative purposes. You should note that technical details, which we cannot associate with any identifiable individual, do not constitute "personal data" for the purposes of the Data Protection Acts, 1988 & 2003.
Cookies
Cookies are small text files which are downloaded to your computer or mobile device when you visit a website or application. Your web browser (such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome) then sends these cookies back to the website or application on each subsequent visit so that they can recognise you and remember things like user preferences.
By continuing to use our website without changing the settings, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.
Types of cookies we use and why:
| Cookie | Name | Purpose | More information |
| Google Analytics | _utma _utmb _utmc _utmz | These cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited | Click here for an overview of privacy at Google |
| Online form session cookie | ASP.NET_SessionId | This cookie is created when a user connects to an ASP.NET application and will expire when the user closes their browser. This cookie is essential for use of forms on our site to store the session id of the user’s current session. | Visit the Microsoft website |
| Accessibility/ contrast stylesheets | csssps | This cookie is used to remember which accessibility/contrast/standard style sheet the user prefers. The website checks this cookie when the page loads up and displays the page using which stylesheet the user last used | |
| Twitter Feed Cookies | External_referrer k original_referrer _twitter_sess | These cookies are via the twitter importer used on the homepage template. These are all sourced from twitter.com | Visit Twitter API website |
Managing cookies in your browser
Most browsers will allow you to see what cookies you've got and delete them on an individual basis, block third party cookies, block cookies from particular sites, block all cookies from being set and delete all cookies when you close your browser. To find out how to block cookies, see the ‘Help’ menu on your browser. Please note that if you turn off cookies or change your settings, some features may not work correctly. You should be aware that any preferences will be lost if you delete cookies.
Usage of Google Analytics
This website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. ("Google"). Google Analytics uses "cookies", which are text files placed on your computer, to help the website analyze how users use the site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google's behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser, however please note that if you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of this website. By using this website, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above.