Met Éireann’s iOS and Android Apps
(Privacy Statement)
The Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government is the Government Department responsible for housing and water, for physical and spatial planning, for local government and for weather forecasting.
The Department is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This privacy statement explains how the Department, as the Data Controller, will process the personal data provided to it in respect of Met Éireann’s Apps (Apple and Android) and the Forecast Division system for the dispersal of Weather Warning alerts via push notifications on the Met Éireann app; how that information will be used, and what rights you may exercise in relation to your personal data.
Categories of personal data
When you use Met Éireann’s App, device data, and content and usage data, is gathered for statistical and development purposes and to provide weather information to you based on your customised choices. Location data from the data subject’s device GPS is used to deliver
location specific weather forecasts and gather information for analytic purposes, this is an optional feature of our app. The use of GPS location can be disabled from within the App or device system settings.
Purposes of the processing
The Department will use your data for statistical and development purposes. Location data from the device GPS is used only to deliver location specific weather forecasts, this is an optional feature. Data is also collected in order to disseminate weather warning alerts, or
subscriptions, to you based on your customised choices. This is an optional feature. The Department will not process your personal data for any purpose other than that for which it was collected.
Profiling
The Department will not use any personal data collected from you in respect of Met Éireann’s Apps for automated decision-making, or for profiling purposes.
Lawfulness of processing
This processing of your personal data is lawful under Article 6 (1) (a); which states that you have given consent to the processing of your personal data for the specific purpose of this processing activity.
Security of your personal data
The Department implements appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your information from unauthorised access. However, despite these efforts, no security measures are perfect or impenetrable, and no method of data transmission can be guaranteed
against any interception or other type of misuse. In the event that your personal data is compromised as a result of a breach of security, the Department’s Breach Management policy and procedures will be implemented.
Recipients of the data
Met Éireann will not share your personal data with any other recipients. External third party processors are used by Met Éireann for the purposes of the provision of our services to you, and to help us improve our services. If the data subject’s device location services are enabled,
the device’s GPS coordinates will be sent over an SSL encrypted connection to our web developer hosts FUSIO Ltd’s web server. The server does a “lookup” on the MySQL database to translate this data into the latitude + longitude format. FUSIO Ltd. receives this latitude +
longitude and calls an API with the location data, to retrieve a forecast for the user’s device. FUSIO Ltd. also created the ‘My Warnings’ Weather Warning alerts subscription setup screens on our App, and Jeremy Benn Associates (JBA) Ltd process the Weather Warning push notification choices once an App user has agreed, via tickbox, to receive Weather Warnings.
Cross-border Data Transfers
The Department will not transfer personal data collected in respect of Met Éireann’s Apps to any country or international organisation outside the EU/EEA.
How long will your data be kept?
The Department will retain and process your personal data for the purposes for which it was collected and processed. The location information is never stored on the servers – no record of your location is ever kept. This data is never sent to Met Éireann, it is only processed by Fusio Ltd who host the website on our behalf. The use of GPS location can be disabled from within the App or device system settings.
If you no longer wish to receive push notifications of weather warnings please delete all subscriptions set up in the ‘My Warnings’ feature in the Warnings section of the Met Éireann app. Alternatively, all notifications can be stopped by switching off Notifications in the device Settings system; the method varies from device to device and on the Operating system version installed. In the event that you uninstall the App your personal data stored on the device will be deleted.
Your rights
The Department’s Data Protection Policy, which sets out how we will use your personal data, as well as providing information regarding your rights as a data subject (including details regarding right of access, right to rectification, right to erasure, right to restriction of
processing, right to object), is available on our website. The policy is also available in hard copy upon request.
If you consider that your rights have been infringed, you have the right to complain to the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (www.dataprotection.ie), and you have the right to seek a judicial remedy.
Contacting Us
If you require further information, or wish to access your personal data, please contact the Department’s Data Protection Officer, details below:
Data Protection Officer,
Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government,
Newtown Road,
Wexford
Email: data.protection@housing.gov.ie
Telephone: 053 9117450