Covid Community Response

Version: 1.1
Creation Date: 16 March 2026

Covid Community Response is based in Ireland and has been set up in an effort to help coordinate ongoing national & local community initiatives in the fight against Covid-19, by sharing resources through connecting volunteers and service users.

Covid Community Response is made up of local volunteers to support vulnerable people during the Coronavirus outbreak. The service is set up to help the residents of Ireland with tasks such as shopping, transport, befriending, and basic support during isolation caused by the virus.

Identity of the Data Controller and Contact Details

“Data controllers” are the people who or organisations which determine the purposes for which, and the manner in which, any Personal Data is processed, who/which make independent decisions in relation to the Personal Data and/or who/which otherwise control that Personal Data.

For the purposes of the GDPR, Covid Community Response is the data controller with regard to the Personal Data described in this Privacy Policy and Notice.

Our Data Protection Coordinator can be contacted as follows:-

Updates

Our practices as described here now may be changed, but any changes will be posted, and changes will only apply to activities and information on a going forward, not retroactive basis. You are encouraged to review this Notice periodically to make sure that you understand how any personal information you provide will be used. Any changes to this Privacy Policy and Notice will be posted on this website so you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. If at any time we decide to use Personal Data in a manner significantly different from that stated in this Privacy Policy and Notice, or otherwise disclosed to you at the time it was collected, we will notify you by email, and you will have a choice as to whether or not we use your information in the new manner.

Why and how do we ensure compliance?

Data protection provides rights to individuals with regard to the use of their Personal Data by organisations, including our organisation. Irish and EU laws on data protection govern all activities we engage in with regard to our collection, storage, handling, disclosure and other uses of Personal Data.

Compliance with the data protection rules is a legal obligation. In addition, our compliance with the data protection rules helps individuals to have confidence in dealing with us and helps us to maintain a positive reputation in relation to how we handle personal information.

The data protection rules that apply to us are currently contained in the Data Protection Act 1988 Revised, the Data Protection Act 2018, in the ePrivacy Regulations 2011, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU Regulation 679/2016) (the “GDPR”) and in related legislation (together the “DPAs”).

What are the data protection principles and rules?

We aim to comply with the following principles found in Data Protection Law:

- Lawfulness, fairness and transparency – Personal data must be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner.
- Purpose Limitation. Personal data must be collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes.
- Data minimisation – Personal Data must be adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary in relation to purposes for which they are processed.
- Accuracy – Personal data must be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date. Inaccurate Personal Data should be corrected or deleted.
- Retention – Personal data should be kept in an identifiable format for no longer than is necessary.
- Integrity and confidentiality – Personal data should be kept secure.
- Accountability – Under the GDPR, we must not only comply with the above six general principles but we must be able to demonstrate that we comply by documenting and keeping records of all decisions.

What types of personal data will we process?

As service users or volunteers with Covid Community Response we will ask you to provide certain personal information about yourself which includes your name, contact details, and sometimes any medical history/conditions you may have that will help us to provide our services to you.

Personal Data

We will collect personal data with you in accordance with the purposes outlined in this document. This will be basic personal data used to facilitate a service type relationship, usually your name, phone number and email address and from time to time billing information.

Special Category Personal Data

We may collect health data from you. You will be asked to provide your consent for this at the time of collection.

Criminal Conviction Data

We will not collect criminal conviction data from you.

Children’s Personal Data

As our service is not aimed at children, if we are notified or learn that a child has submitted Personal Data to us through our digital or social media without the correct permissions or consents, we will delete such Personal Data. If you would like to make use of our services and you are not yet 18 years old, we require that an adult is present when you register, if registration is required. Where consent is required to process your Personal Data as a child, we will obtain that consent from the adult who is authorised to give the consent on your behalf. You must be at least 18 years old to create an account and engage in activities and transactions on our digital and social media. By creating an account or engaging in activities or transactions on our digital and social media, you affirm that you are at least 18 years old and are fully able to enter into and comply with our regular Terms of Use and this Privacy Policy and Notice.

Why we need your information

We use personal data to help us provide the most appropriate level of service to our service users and volunteers. Covid Community Response requires this information in order to perform the services we currently offer to you and the local community.

Whose data do we collect?

We hold data on those using the services of, volunteer with or otherwise support the work of Covid Community Response

How we obtain your data

Most of the information we hold about you is or has been provided directly to us by you. In some cases, we may collect data from someone else. This may be by referral from a relative, friend, medical or social services, where necessary, in order to help us to provide our services to you.

What we do with your data and why

The main purposes of our data processing are to:

- provide appropriate help and services to the users of Covid Community Response
- communicate with you about Covid Community Response
- administer our services where we match volunteers with service users

We may use data obtained from other people or organisations to ensure that your contact details are kept up to date, to plan our services and to ensure that appropriate due diligence is carried out to safeguard the volunteers and service users of Covid Community Response.

We collect and record the following information (from the data provided by you or your representative) when completing our volunteer registration application form or other Covid Community Response (manual or electronic) forms used to help us provide services and information:

- Name(s) and address, email, phone number and other relevant contact details.
- Your current or past medical history that we need and is necessary for us provide the appropriate level of service to you. Where this is not required for us to provide our services to you we will not collect this data from you
- Relevant next of kin, family or friends contact details that we require and are necessary in case of emergency contact.
- Records of volunteering for Covid Community Response, information about our relationship with you, including correspondence, conversation notes, and volunteering activities

Protecting your data

We keep your data secure. Manual paper forms are secured in locked cabinets and digital forms are held in password protected files. Only those members of Covid Community Response and those otherwise authorised have access to your data.

We do not share your data with anyone else or any other organisation unless it is necessary for the purpose for which you have given us permission or if we are legally required to do so.

Examples of when it may be necessary to share your data:

- We may share basic information about you with a Covid Community Response volunteer who has been assigned to help you as part of their role within Covid Community Response.
- In an emergency we may share your personal data and medical history with emergency services, HSE, social services or other statutory organisation, or where we are legally required to do so in order to provide the appropriate level of care and support to you.
- We may pass some, or all, of the information we hold on you to other organisations (Data Processors). An example would be providing data to medical or social service providers or to a maintenance contractor or other similar service provider in order to help you at your request or at the request of a person acting on your behalf.
- Data Processors, with whom we share data, will not use your data other than that which we have requested.
- We will never share your data with third parties for marketing purposes.

Our responsibilities

The law requires us to tell you the basis on which we process your data:

- Some activities (for example sending you emails, letters or leaflets which promote the Covid Community Response general activities) require your consent. If the law requires your consent to process data in a certain way, then we will obtain it before carrying out that activity. This will not stop you from using the services of Covid Community Response.
- Where consent is given, we keep a record of date, time and circumstances
- Where consent is given, we will record special category data such as your medical history or current health condition(s) only where necessary and for the purpose of providing our services to you.
- In all other cases, which we will update here, the law allows us to process your data if it is in our and your legitimate interest (in a way that you would expect the data to be used) to do so, but only so long as we need to and your “interests or your fundamental rights and freedoms are not overridden”.

Retaining your data

We will keep data for as long as is needed to complete the task for which it was collected. We will only keep the data for as long as is needed to provide our services to you.

Your rights

The law requires us to let you know your rights about the way we process your data:

- Where our use of your data requires consent, you may withdraw this consent at any time. You can refuse to give your consent but this will not stop you from using the services provided by Covid Community Response.
- You can have any incorrect data we hold about you corrected.
- You will be informed of any new uses of your personal data before we start processing it.
- Where we rely on our legitimate interest to process data, you may ask us to stop doing so.
- You may request a copy of the data we hold about you.
- You may change or stop the way in which we communicate with you or process data about you, and if it is not required for the purpose you provided it, then we will do so.

How do you exercise your rights or Opt Out?

We have appointed a Data Protection Coordinator to monitor compliance with our data protection obligations and with this policy and our related policies. If you have any questions about this policy or about our data protection compliance, please contact the Data Protection Coordinator.

Data subjects must make a formal request for Personal Data we hold about them or otherwise to exercise their data protections rights whether to make an access request or otherwise by contacting our Data Protection Coordinator who will respond to the request within 30 days.

We are obliged to comply with exceptions to your requests where laid out in law. Such exceptions relate to health data, disclosures that would be likely to cause serious harm to your physical or mental health or emotional condition and opinions given in confidence.