Privacy & Cookies Policy

Telefonica Ireland Limited Privacy & Cookies Statement

1. Introduction

1.1    Telefónica Ireland Ltd offers a wide range of services to our customers in telephony and related markets. All our services require the processing of some personal data about customers in order for us to deliver these services. We value the privacy of our customers and work to ensure we use the information you provide us in a fair and balanced way that meets or exceeds the requirements of current EU Data Protection rules.

1.2    The purpose of this Privacy Policy is to set out how Telefónica Ireland Limited ("O2" "us" "we" or "our") obtains and uses your personal information ("Data") and how we comply with applicable data protection and privacy laws.

1.3    This policy addresses our general principles and practices that control how we process your personal data. For each product or service you subscribe to additional terms and conditions and a specific more detailed Privacy Statement may apply which will give you more information about how we use your information in the context of that product or service.

1.4    You should read this policy together with our General Terms and Conditions and any Terms and Conditions and Privacy Statements of specific products or services provided to you by O2. Examples of these services would include our phone services (Bill Pay and Pre Pay), our Online Shop, loyalty or marketing services such as O2 Treats, & O2 Money. By using such services you agree that O2 may process your Data in line with the general Terms and Conditions, this general Privacy Policy, and any conditions or consents specific to the product or service you are using.

1.5    Notification of Changes
We keep our Privacy Policies and Practices under constant review to ensure they reflect the current legal and regulatory environment and changes in O2 practices for the protection of personal data. We reserve the right to amend this policy at any future date. Substantive changes to these policies and practices will be made available to customers in advance of the changes becoming effective.
 
 

2. How We Collect Information

2.1    We may collect information directly from you when you are asked to provide personal details about yourself, including but not limited to when you:

•    purchase products or services from us whether in store, online, by phone or elsewhere;
•    register to become an O2 customer or for any O2 Service;
•    submit enquiries to us or contact us;
•    enter any promotions, competitions or prize draws via the Services;
•    use O2 products and Services;
•    take part in market research; and/or
•    when you terminate your account with us.

2.2    We may also collect information indirectly from you when you use the Services, including but not limited to when you:

•    visit or browse this website or other O2 Group websites. When visiting, we may write cookies to your computer or mobile device. Please see the Cookies section for more detail on this;
•    browse or otherwise access the Internet, WAP sites and/or the mobile internet via the Services;
•    download any software that allows us to view your Broadband setup functionality and to proxy on to your computer;
•    access and use our networks (mobile/broadband or other); and/or
•    access and use any other service, including the frequency and level of engagement on such service.

2.3    We may also collect information about you from other sources, including but not limited to:
•    credit reference agencies;
•    fraud prevention agencies; and/or
•    business directories and other commercially or publicly available sources.e.

 

 

3. The Information We Collect

3.1    We collect information such as:

•    your name;
•    your date of birth
•    other personal information required to provide the product or service sought;
•    billing address;
•    installation address;
•    delivery address;
•    telephone number;
•    your use of products and Services including but not limited to phone numbers and/or email addresses of calls, texts, MMS, emails and other communications made and received by you and the date, duration, time and cost of such communications, your searching, browsing history (including web sites you visit) and location data, internet PC location for broadband, address location for billing, delivery, installation or as provided by individual, phone location (more generically known as your traffic details, service usage data and location data);
•    how your conduct and manage your account(s) with us;
•    your use of O2 products and services; and/or
•    debit or credit card details, banking details and other payment information

4. How We Use Your Information

4.1    We may use and analyse information about you in order to:

•    provide you with access to parts of this site;
•    process your order or application for services;
•    create and maintain accounts;
•    calculate and charge for O2 Services;
•    supply Services and products that you have ordered;
•    contact you if necessary;
•    verify that you are an authorised user for security purposes;
•    arrange for payment of goods or Services purchased;
•    inform you of any service related message or of any new Services or functionality (eg the introduction of a new messaging service);
•    provide you with service alerts and other information and messages (such as birthday messages);
•    assist us with crime and fraud prevention such as to check your identity;
•    assist you with any product or Services enquiries, including the investigation and resolution of service affecting issues and dealing with any billing queries you may have;
•    investigate any complaints or other enquiries that you submit to us;
•    enhance and personalise the products and Services that we offer you and to develop new products and services;
•    monitor or record your calls for training purposes in order to track reported problems and ensure your customer service needs are met;
•    manage O2’s traffic, network and billing management and the security of same;
•    analyse markets and produce reports, perform research and statistical analysis and to monitor usage behaviour (including when you are no longer an O2 customer);
•    market our products and Services generally;
•    inform you of O2 sponsored events and promotions;
•    send information to you about our products and Services from time to time by phone, post, email, text, MMS, automated dialing equipment or other means (subject to any objection or preference you may indicate when submitting your details to us);
•    inform you of any products and Services offered by other companies that we think may be of interest to you, provided that you choose to receive this information;
•    disclose your personal information or usage of our services to certain third parties. See Disclosure of Your Information below;
•    debt tracing, debt recovery, credit management and crime, fraud and money laundering detection and prevention;
•    any other activities necessary to the running of our business, including system testing, network monitoring, staff training, quality control and any legal proceedings by, or against, us;
•    any other activities or disclosures necessary to comply with any regulatory, government or legal obligation;
•    aggregate information about you, your spending and your use of the Services with information about other users of the Services in order to identify trends ("Aggregated Data"). We may pass Aggregated Data to third parties, such as advertisers, content providers and business partners or prospective business partners, to give them a better understanding of our business and to bring you a better service. Aggregated Data will not contain information from which you may be personally identified; and/or
•    analyse information about you including your calling, searching, browsing and location data (subject to your consent to same) on a personalised or aggregated basis. We may pass this data to third parties and we may use this information to provide you with targeted O2 or third party offers, promotions, adverts or commercial communications.

5. Disclosure of your Information

5.1    We may disclose your information:

•    to our partners, agents and subcontractors (including prospective partners, agents and subcontractors) who are involved in the delivery of providing products or services used or ordered by you and/or are engaged by us in the business purposes for which processing may occur as referenced above;
•    to other companies in the Telefónica Group, including their respective partners, agents and sub contractors (including prospective partners, agents and subcontractors);
•    to credit reference agencies and fraud prevention agencies;
•    to insurance underwriters and administrators ("Insurance Providers") where you choose to take an insurance policy through us;
•    to other communications companies;
•    to any relevant public authority or law enforcement agency;
•    to third parties for checking details of job applicants and employees;
•    to third parties from whom you have chosen to receive marketing information under any O2 service;
•    where there is a change (or prospective change) in the ownership of Telefónica Ireland Limited to new or prospective owners of Telefónica Ireland Limited. In these circumstances we would require them to keep it confidential;
•    where required by law, regulation or legal proceedings, including the disclosure of location data to emergency services (where requested by same to avoid loss, injury, death to you, others , or your property) and/or disclosures of your data under other specific legal requirements;
•    where we believe it is necessary to protect O2 or third party rights and property;
•    where we believe you have given us false or inaccurate information and we identify or suspect fraud, or have any reasonable grounds for further investigating and examining an application or information given, including for random compliance and best practice purposes;
•    where we, or an affiliate processing your data on our behalf, are compelled to do so by law;
•    in response to a valid, legally compliant request by a competent authority;
•    during emergencies when we believe physical safety is at risk;
•    where the service is moderated; or
•    in response to a complaint that that there has been a breach of the Services terms & conditions or any other product or service terms of which you have been notified.

5.2    In providing such disclosures, it may be necessary for your data to be passed outside of the EEA. Where this is done, we will ensure that reasonable controls are in place to protect your data as safe and secure to the same standards and requirements as set out in Ireland. Furthermore, please note that when roaming on other third party networks outside of Ireland, they may have access to, use and process your Personal Data for the purposes of providing such roaming services.

6. Retention

6.1    Whilst you are a user of the O2 services, O2 will acquire and process information about your use of the O2 services. O2 will retain this information for the primary purpose for which it was obtained and for other legitimate purposes including, where required by law.

6.2    As with all aspects of our Privacy Policy this retention schedule is kept under regular review to ensure that it reflects the O2 practices and meets the requirements of EU Data Protection and Retention regulations.

6.3    Accordingly, O2 may, but is not obliged save where required by law, retain the following specific data types for the periods and general purposes set out below:

Retention of Traffic data

Data processed for the purpose of the conveyance of a communication (e.g. connecting a voice call, sending sms etc.) on our network and/or for billing you with the cost of such a communication.

 

Processing	Period
For market research, product development, marketing, customer profiling and relationship management.	Two years
Billing (Pay monthly only)	Six years plus the current year in the event that the bill is legally challenged.
Interconnection payments (Payments made to third party network operators for the transmission of communication on their network)	Six years plus the current year in the event that the bill is legally challenged.
Retention exclusively for the purpose of O2 complying with its legal obligation to retain Traffic Data for the purpose of State law enforcement investigations and prosecutions.	Two years(mobile telephone data) One Year (internet access, email & telephone data)

 

Retention of Data Services Records

Data processed for the purpose of providing data services including O2 active, i-mode, website browsing, downloading content. Data records do not include content of the data. (note i-mode and WAP logs show the URL accessed, but not any images or text)

Processing	Period
For market research, product development, marketing, customer profiling and relationship management.	Two years
Billing (Pay monthly only)	Six years plus the current year in the event that the bill is legally challenged.
Interconnection payments (Payments made to third party network operators for the transmission of communication on their network)	Six years plus the current year in the event that the bill is legally challenged.
Retention exclusively for the purpose of O2 complying with its legal obligation to retain Traffic Data for the purpose of State law enforcement investigations and prosecutions.	Two years(mobile telephone data) One Year (internet access, email & telephone data)

 

Retention of Location Data

Data processed, indicating the geographic position of the phone or other device of a user of O2s services based on network cell identification.

 

Processing	Period
Obtaining, storage and disclosure for the purpose of providing value added location-based services in accordance with subscribers instructions. The value added location-based service may be provided by O2 or by third parties with whom the subscriber has contracted to provide the service.	For the period from receipt of the subscribers instructions until such instructions expire or are revoked by the subscriber. Subscriber may suspend this processing during this period on request free of charge.
Retention exclusively for the purpose of O2 complying with its legal obligation to retain Traffic Data for the purpose of State law enforcement investigations and prosecutions.	Two years(mobile telephone data) One Year (internet access, email & telephone data)

 

 

7. Cookies

A "cookie" is a piece of information, like a tag, which some websites create on your device which identifies your computer or smartphone whenever you visit that website.
In order to provide you with the best possible online experience, O2 may create cookies when you visit the O2 site. Cookies may be used to help you in the following ways: to limit the frequency with which you will see particular advertisements or O2 announcements on the site; to identify your defaults if you have set up a customised homepage; to keep track of how many times you do specific things whilst using O2, to track where you have come from if you were referred to our website; to provide you with self-help information; and to make our email offers more relevant to you by taking into account your response to previous email offers.
Our cookies will not be used to analyse your visits to other sites. Agents of O2, who assist in the serving, and targeting of advertisements, promotions and other marketing messages may use cookies to collect anonymous data such as how many people have viewed a particular page each day. Data collected by cookies will not otherwise be passed to any third party. You have the ability to accept or decline cookies.
Most PCs automatically accept them but you can modify your browser settings to decline if you so wish. If you decline cookies, some aspects of the O2 site may not work on your PC and you may not be able to access areas you want on the website. For this reason we recommend that you accept cookies. O2 will not store any sensitive information relating to you or your user account in a cookie.
For further information on Cookies and how you adjust your browser settings in relation to Cookies, please click here.

8. Access to your Information

8.1    You have the right to request a copy of the Personal Data (as defined under the Data Protection Acts 1988-2003) which personally identifies you, held by O2. We may charge you an administration fee to cover the cost of carrying out your request. You should write to the Customer Care, Telefónica Ireland Limited, McLaughlin Road, National Technology Park, Limerick marked "Data Access Request". You should include adequate information to identify yourself and, such other relevant information that you may have that will reasonably to assist us in fulfilling your request. Your request will be dealt with as soon as possible and will take not more than 40 days to process.

8.2    You also have a right to have inaccurate information corrected. If you discover that O2 holds inaccurate information about you, you may instruct us to correct that information. Your instruction should be in writing to the address above. A request will be dealt with as soon as possible and will take not more than 40 days to process. If we reasonably believe that information you supplied to us is false or inaccurate or we suspect fraud we may record that belief, and this may result in a delay to your connection or a suspension of your access to O2 Services.

8.3    You have expressed a preference, in subscribing to our products or services, as to the manner in which O2 may contact you in relation to O2 marketing and promotional information. You may change your preference in this regard at any time by phoning us on 1747 (Speak easy customers) and 1909 (Pay monthly customers), by writing to the customer care address specified above, or where we have contacted you by email, by using the opt-out facility to indicate your preference not to be contacted subsequently by email. You can also change your preference in Permissions & Preferences Page for My Account. Click here for My Account

8.4    You can contact us generally about our Privacy or Data Protection Policies us via our Customer Care centre on 1747 (pre pay) or 1909 (bill pay) or in writing to the Data Protection Officer, Telefonica O2 Ireland, Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Dublin 2.