Privacy Policy

This privacy notice sets out how Fostering First Ireland (FFI) uses and protects any personal information that you give FFI when you use this website. FFI is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified when using this website, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy notice.

This website is intended for adults and we do not knowingly collect information relating to children through this website.

FFI is the controller and responsible for your personal information. If you want to contact us, please email us at contactus@ffi.ie  or phone 01 417 1944 or write to Fostering First Ireland, Grantham House, Grantham Street, Dublin 8.

We have appointed a Data Protection Officer, who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy notice.

If you have any questions about this privacy notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact the Data Protection Officer by emailing: DPO@ffi.ie

FFI may change this privacy notice from time to time by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes. This privacy notice is effective from 25th May 2025.

It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes during your relationship with us.

We may collect the following information:

• name and surname

• Contact information including email address and contact number

• County in which you are based.

• Basic browser or device information, used solely to manage security of our website.

• Cookie preferences, with your consent,

• Other information, which you volunteer to us in your message via the website..

If you are registering your interest in our company but do not provide us with relevant and accurate contact details, this will affect our ability to contact you in order to progress your enquiry.

We have set out below a description of the ways we plan to use your personal information:

• To register your enquiry and interest, and arrange a response to you.

• To deliver relevant website content.

• To administer this website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data).

• To improve our website, products/services, customer relationships and experiences.

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose.

If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

We will only use your personal information when we have a legal basis to do so. Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

• Where we need to take steps to enter a potential contract with you.

• Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.

• Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.

• With your consent.

We may process your personal information for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your information. This will depend on the reasons for which we are processing your personal data, and are detailed in our separate privacy notices (links below).

Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests to use your personal information, we have listed below what our legitimate interests are:

You will receive communications from us as part of your enquiry, although you can opt out of receiving these at any time by contacting us.

We may need to share your personal information with certain parties for the purposes set out above. These third parties are also committed to protecting your information. We have listed those third parties as follows:

• Other companies in our group for reasons such as IT and system administration services as well as reporting activities.

• Service providers who support our website or supply IT and system administration services.

• Partnering organisations or other entities which assist us to provide or improve our services (for example, by analysing and modelling statistics/data).

We require all third party service providers and other entities in the group to respect the security of your personal information and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third party service providers to use your personal information for their own purposes. We only permit them to process your personal information for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

The nature of the internet is such that we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us via our website, no transmission over the internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure.  However, we have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we strictly limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal information breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

Fostering First Ireland will only store personal data submitted through our website only for as long as necessary for the purpose(s) for which it was obtained. Unless we notify you otherwise in writing, we will hold your personal information based on the following criteria:

• For as long as is reasonable, such as progressing your journey to becoming an approved Foster Carer or managing our relationship with you;

• For as long as is needed to defend a legal claim against us; and

• Retention periods in line with legal and regulatory requirements or guidance.

We have detailed below, a list of the rights that you have under data protection laws. They do not apply in all circumstances and we will explain in writing whether or not they do, at the time you wish to exercise any of these rights.

• The right to be informed about the processing of your personal information.

• The right to have your personal information corrected if it is inaccurate and to have incomplete personal information completed.

• The right to object to processing of your personal information.

• The right to restrict processing of your personal information.

• The right to have your personal information erased (the “right to be forgotten”), where applicable.

• The right to request access to your personal information and to obtain information about how we process it.

• The right to withdraw consent. This means that, if we are relying on your consent as the legal basis for using your personal data, you are free to withdraw that consent at any time.

• The right to request the transfer of your personal information to another party (“data portability”).

If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please email us at contactus@ffi.ie or phone 01 417 1944 or write to Fostering First Ireland, Grantham House, Grantham Street, Dublin 8.

You also have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Data Protection Commissioner, the supervisory authority for data protection issues in the Republic of Ireland (www.dataprotection.ie ). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the Commissioner, so please contact us in the first instance.

A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer’s hard drive. For full details on how we use cookies, please see out Cookie Policy here

Our website may contain links to enable you to visit other websites of interest easily. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy notice. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy notice applicable to the website in question.

This website is intended for adults and we do not knowingly collect information relating to children through this website. We encourage parents and legal guardians to monitor their children’s internet usage and to help enforce this Privacy Notice by instructing their children never to provide personal information via our website without their guardian’s consent.

This website is intended for adults and we do not knowingly collect information relating to children through this website. We encourage parents and legal guardians to monitor their children’s internet usage and to help enforce this Privacy Notice by instructing their children never to provide personal information via our website without their guardian’s consent.

This privacy notice supplements the following notices and is not intended to override them:

To read our full Privacy Notice if you are at any stage, in the process of becoming a foster carer, please click here.

To read our full Privacy Notice if you are an approved foster carer, click here.

To read our full Privacy Notice if you are in the process of applying for a job with FFI, please click here.

To read our full Privacy Notice if you are a Young Person over 18 years of age, please click here.