Privacy Statement

IPHA is committed to protecting the privacy of all individuals using its websites.

This statement discloses the legal and privacy practices in connection with Medicines.ie. The IPHA is not responsible for the content or privacy practices of other websites and any external links to other websites are clearly identifiable as such.

Information collection and use

IPHA does not collect or store any personally identifiable information about website users, unless you voluntarily provide this information. You might voluntarily provide information when you:

  • Contact us – we may keep a copy of the correspondence
  • Register to use IPHA services
  • Log into any of the IPHA websites
  • Fill in a form to attend a IPHA event, meeting or training session
  • Voluntarily complete a survey for research purposes

We always aim to ensure that the personally identifiable information that we collect will be adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the purpose for which it is processed. IPHA does not sell personal information it has gathered about you to third parties.

IPHA may use the information you provide to us to:

  • Respond to your requests
  • Notify you about changes to our service
  • Carry out obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and IPHA
  • Provide you with relevant information, products, services and training

IPHA will disclose your personally identifiable information to third parties only under exceptional circumstances:

  • If it is under a legal obligation to do so. For example, if you provide safety data about a medicine we are obliged to pass this information to the company that markets that medicine so that they can fulfil their safety reporting obligations
  • If third party suppliers need it to perform a contracted role
  • If we believe the law requires it, or in response to any demand by law enforcement authorities in connection with a criminal investigation, or civil or administrative authorities in connection with a pending civil case or administrative investigation

Users of our websites

When you use our websites, we collect non-personally identifiable information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. For example, we collect the total number of visits to our websites, the number of visitors to each page, the domain names of our visitors’ internet service provider and other website analytics data. We use this information to analyse trends, administer the site and track users' movements so that we can improve our sites.

Cookies

We may from time to time use various cookies that retain information about you and your use of our websites. A cookie is a small piece of data that is transferred from a website, via your web browser and is automatically stored on your computer’s hard drive. Cookies are widely used to make websites work or make them work better. Cookies provide us with information about your activities or preferences whilst using our websites and provide statistical and technical information about how you use our websites. We use this information to improve our websites and deliver a better personalised service. We use a number of different cookies on our websites.

  • Persistent cookies: we may set a cookie on your PC to remember your details. This cookie stays on your computer indefinitely, even after you leave our websites
  • Session cookies: we use these to remember your preferences during your visit. For example, if you prefer to see 10 or 25 search results per page on www.medicines.ie. Session cookies are stored only temporarily during the browsing sessions and are deleted once the browser is closed
  • Flash cookies: we may use Adobe Flash Player in the future to deliver video content. Adobe uses their own cookies to store information about preferences and tracking users

Cookies may be:

  • First party cookies: these cookies are set by the IPHA websites that you visit
  • Third party cookies: these cookies are set by a site/service outside of IPHA. For example, the website might use embedded YouTube or Flickr content, or use third party advertising, and these sites may set their own cookies

How to manage cookies

Most web browsers are set to accept cookies, but if you don’t want to receive cookies, you can change your browser so that it notifies you when cookies are sent to it or you can refuse cookies altogether. If you restrict or block web browser cookies, you may find that some aspects of our websites will not work. For more information about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, please visit the All about cookies website .

IP address

An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a set of numbers that is automatically assigned to your computer when you browse the internet. Our web servers may log the IP address and we may use this data to conduct system administration and to analyse website usage and performance. If you access our sites through mobile or other devices, we may also collect your unique device identifier.

Anonymous analytics cookies

Our websites use Google analytics among other web analytics tools to collect information about how visitors use our websites. For example the number of visitors, the time of visit, which pages you visited, whether you have visited the site before and what site referred you to our websites. We use the data to compile reports and improve our websites. For more information and to opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics, please visit the Google website .

Links to other websites

This website contains links to other websites as a service to our users. IPHA is not responsible for the content or privacy practices of other websites. When you leave our sites, please check the legal and privacy policies of any site you access.

Your choices

You can choose not to submit any personally identifiable information to our website. However, if you choose to submit information, you have the right to see and correct the information at any time, either by contacting us, or, if you have access, using our systems to update your own data.

If you receive communications, such as updates and newsletters from us, you can opt out at any time, by following the instructions in the communication.

You can prevent cookies by following the instructions above.

Where we store your personally identifiable information

Any personally identifiable information that you provide will be stored on secure computers. The data will primarily be stored in the Republic of Ireland, but it may be stored and processed on computers located outside the European Economic Area (EEA) in accordance with current data protection legislation.

Updates to privacy policy

From time to time, IPHA may revise this privacy policy. Continued use of our websites after receiving notice of a change in our privacy policy indicates your consent to the use of newly submitted information in accordance with the amendments. This legal and privacy policy was last updated on 31st Jan 2018.