VoterConnect.ie uses Google Analytics to understand which pages are read and how the site is used, so we know what to improve. It only runs with your consent — you'll see a message on your first visit asking you to choose, and your choice is remembered on this device. Either way, the site works exactly the same.

If you consent, Google Analytics sets first-party cookies and records page views (the page visited, your approximate location, device and browser type, and how you arrived at the site) together with how you use the site — searches you make (including the search terms), signing in or creating an account, following a bill, member or topic, liking or disliking a speech or bill, submitting a comment, submitting the contact form, downloading a bill document, and starting or completing a supporter subscription (including which plan you chose and its price). This is processed by Google — see Google's privacy policy.

If you decline, no analytics cookies are set and nothing is tied to you as a visitor — but the Google Analytics script still loads and sends anonymous, cookieless signals, as required by Google's Consent Mode.

You can change your choice at any time. Manage consent

Separately from analytics, our servers keep access logs of every request made to this site — the page or file requested, your IP address, approximate location, browser type, and the page that referred you. This happens regardless of your analytics choice, since it is part of serving the site. We use these logs only to keep the site running and to spot abuse; we do not use them to build a profile of you, and we do not share them with anyone. They are kept for 30 days and then deleted.

If you use our contact form, we keep the name, e-mail address and message you send us, along with the time you sent it, your browser and operating system, and the version of the site you were using. We use this only to read and reply to your message — we do not use it for anything else, and we do not share it with anyone.

If you create an account, we keep your e-mail address and the date you signed up, so we can recognise you when you sign back in. Signing in sets a session cookie identifying you to our servers; this is strictly necessary to keep you signed in and is set regardless of your analytics choice above, since it isn't used for tracking or analytics. We process this data because it's necessary to provide the account you asked for. You can see everything we hold on your account page, sign out of one or all of your sessions, and permanently delete your account at any time. Deleting it removes your e-mail address and everything tied to it; the one exception is comments of yours we've published, described below.

If you follow a bill, member or topic, we use your e-mail address to let you know when it changes — as a daily digest by default, or immediately if you switch to that on your account page, where you can also turn these e-mails off entirely. Every notification e-mail carries a one-click unsubscribe link that needs no sign-in. We use your e-mail address for this only to send you the notifications your own follows imply, never for anything else.

Whenever we send you an e-mail — a sign-in link, or any notification described above — we keep a record of it: your e-mail address, what kind of e-mail it was, its subject, the time we sent it, and what our mail provider told us became of it (delivered, bounced, or refused). We do not keep the contents of the e-mail, and we never store the sign-in link itself. We keep these records so we can answer accurately if you or anyone else asks whether we e-mailed you and whether it arrived, and so we can tell when our mail is failing to reach people. They are kept for one year and then deleted. Because they are a record of what we sent, they are kept for that year even if you delete your account in the meantime.

If you post a comment, it appears publicly on this site under a nickname we assign to your account — never your name or your e-mail address. The same nickname is used for every comment you post, so anyone can see all of them together. The exception is a member of the Dáil or Seanad, or someone writing on a member's behalf: if we have set an address up to comment in a member's name, the person chooses on each comment whether it is published in that member's name or under the nickname. We read every comment before it appears, and we may decide not to publish it; we don't give reasons for those decisions (see our comment policy), but you can see what became of everything you've submitted on your account page. We'll e-mail you when a comment of yours is published and when someone replies to one. You can turn that off on your account page — it's a single setting covering both, separate from e-mail about things you follow — and every notification e-mail carries a one-click unsubscribe link that needs no sign-in.

If you report someone else's comment, we record that you did, which comment it was, the reason you picked and when — so a moderator can look at it, and so the same comment isn't put in front of them twice by the same person. The author is never told who reported them, and we don't e-mail you about what we decided. If you delete your account, your reports are deleted with it.

We keep what you submit, including comments we don't publish. A published comment stays on the site until you withdraw it or we take it down; we keep the text for two years after that, then delete it. A comment we decide not to publish is kept for 30 days and then deleted. A comment you withdraw before we have reviewed it is never published, and we keep the text for two years, the same as one withdrawn after. In every case we keep a short record afterwards — who wrote it, when, and what we decided — so we can recognise repeated problems and answer questions about what we published. If you delete your account, comments of yours that are still published stay on the site but no longer show your nickname; we keep our own record of who wrote them, because we published them and may need to identify the author if a legal claim is made about one.

The summaries and topics on this site are produced automatically and reviewed editorially, but nothing about you goes into that process — they are written in batches from the public record alone, well before you load the page. Your visit, your account, and anything you send us are never part of that. See About this site for more.

You have the right to access, correct, or erase your personal data, and to lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Commission, Ireland's supervisory authority. For anything not covered by the account page's own controls, get in touch.

VoterConnect.ie is operated by Adrian Hempel, trading as VoterConnect.ie, of 25 Tenterfields, Brown Street South, Dublin 8, D08 F9KC, Ireland, who is the data controller for the personal data described in this notice.