The Irish Taxation Institute trading as “Irish Tax Institute” (Institute, our, us or we) is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal data.
This privacy notice describes how we collect and use the personal data of individuals we do business with (also referred to in this notice as 'you'). This includes our current, former and prospective:
- members, affiliates, students
- council members/directors
- lecturers, tutors or speakers on courses, conferences, seminars or events run or hosted by the Institute as well as contributors to our magazines, books and publications
- student mentors
- purchasers and subscribers to our magazines, books, publications and products/services (including online) as well as registrants for continuing professional development training courses or other courses, events and seminars
- representatives from employers of affiliates, students and members as well as representatives of member firms and service providers
- examiners, invigilators and moderators as well as editors of our publications and books
- complainants and enquirers
This notice does not form part of any contract to provide services. We may update this notice at any time.
We have a separate privacy notice for our staff and those wishing to become our employees which can be accessed at the time of applying to the Institute.
It is important that you read this notice, together with any other privacy notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using such data.
Data Controller
The Institute is a “data controller”. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal data about you. We are required under data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice.
“Personal data” means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data). There are “special categories of personal data” which require a higher level of protection. These include information about a person’s racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, physical or mental health or condition or sexual life.
We may collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you:
| Category of Personal Information | Examples | |
| A | Identity Data | first name, last name, title, date of birth, PPS number, gender, Institute ID number, membership number, student number, customer number, job title, position in your firm |
| B | Contact Data | work address, home address, email address, telephone number, mobile number, place of work |
| C | Profile Data | username, password, employment and educational history, professional / educational qualifications, purchases/orders made by you, your dietary requirements, attendance needs, accessibility requirements where you attend our events; your queries and complaints, your interests, preferences and feedback responses, records of our communication with you, social media posts, details about how you use our products/services, any contraventions by you of our rules and regulations, criminal convictions and offence, |
| D | Course Data | details of courses being/previously taken and of the Institute assessments including assessment scripts, exam scripts, candidate number and results of examinations taken by you or exam adjustments, your attendance at our courses, events and seminars (including those held online) |
| E | Video and Audio Data | individual or group photographs or videos including those taken at our conferring ceremonies, seminars, events, lectures or courses for use on our website, training materials or publications as well as video and audio recordings taken of you while taking our online exams (including your on-screen activities, flags indicating suspected non-conformance by you with our exam rules and regulations, your IP Address (last octet removed), your System Information (browser, cpu, ram, internet connection), any URLs viewed by your during the exams, video recordings of you verifying your identity by showing a valid identification document bearing your photograph and image of that ID document; video and audio recordings of you at our online classroom sessions, tutorials, lectures or other events (including your online user name and any questions raised by you during the online event); video and/or audio recordings of any lecture, talk, seminar, tutorial or classroom session given by and/or narrated by you |
| F | Financial Data | bank account details, payment card details |
| G | Transaction Data | details about payments to and from you and other details of |
| H | Marketing Data | your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third party service providers and your communication preferences |
| I | IT Data | information about your use of our information and communications systems and website as well as the recording and broadcasting of our seminars, conferences, lunches, conferring ceremonies, events, lectures and courses which you attend (including those held online), CCTV footage and other information obtained through electronic means including your use of our Learning Management System and our online seminars, lectures, |
| J | Council Data | information about each director of the Institute for inclusion on the Companies Office Register including first name, last name, residential address, date of birth, nationality, list of directorships, business occupation |
We may also collect, store and use the following special categories of personal information, namely information about your health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records.
During the working relationship with you, we may also collect, store and use information about criminal convictions and offences.
We will collect data directly from you (for example from application and/or registration forms, student forms, membership forms, direct debit forms, CPD forms, contributor’s forms, sales order, change of details forms, at events, during online exams, through communication with us and via our website and by telephone) and will create some data internally (e.g. when we assign you an Institute student/member ID or you become a council member or determine assessment results or exchange correspondence with you).
We will also collect additional personal data throughout the period you remain a council member, member or student of the Institute or you continue to interact / work with or provide a service to us or purchase products/services from us.
We may also collect some data from external sources. For example:
- Employers may provide the Institute with relevant information on you where you are employed by and/or training with them, including where they are registering you with us as a member or student, registering you for a course or paying your membership, course and/or examination fees or confirming your employment status with us for the purposes of your CPD obligations
- Institute's service providers (e.g. lecturers, tutors, mentors, contributors, moderators, examiners and invigilators and suppliers of online assessment and online invigilation systems as well as IT providers) will send the Institute information relevant to the service they are providing
- The general public may provide information to the Institute in relation to complaints and/or investigations
- We may obtain data about you from publicly available resources such as the Companies Office Register, the website of and/or publications issued by the Revenue Commissioners
- Where we need to perform the contract we have entered into with you.
- Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.
- 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.
We may also use your personal data, which is likely to be rare, where we need to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests).
Situations in which we will use your personal data
The table below describes the legal basis that applies to our purposes for processing your personal data. Depending on the circumstances, more than one legal basis may apply.
| Purposes |
| Lawful basis for processing | ||
Managing our relationship with you including notifying you of changes to our terms or privacy policy or asking you for your feedback on our services/products, recording our communications with you, for regulatory purposes, for membership purposes (including retention of our online public database of members), delivering | Categories A,B,C,D,E,F,G, H,I,J | Performance of a contract with you; | ||
To register you on our courses including (a) managing and processing payments, fees and charges for such courses; and (b) collecting and recovering money | Categories A,B,D,F,G | Performance of a contract with you; | ||
Verify your identity as the test taker/exam candidate, to ensure compliance by you with our Student Regulations, for any investigations and appeals and to contact you to provide assistance during the online exams | Categories A, B, E | Performance of a contract with you; | ||
To run our online examinations and ensure that you (as the test taker/exam candidate) comply with our Student Regulations | Categories D, E | Performance of a contract with you; | ||
Administration, organisation, planning and monitoring the delivery of seminars, conferring ceremonies, training and events, such as to reserve a place for you at such events and to ensure that the events are properly hosted and attended; communicating with you in relation to our events; prepare and produce table/seating plans; prepare and produce attendee lists and/or conferring booklets; seeking your feedback | Categories A,B,C,D,E | Performance of a contract with you Necessary for our legitimate interest in running, planning and monitoring the delivery of our events, lectures, seminars, courses and conferences to ensure the needs of attendees as well as operating and growing our business | ||
Administration, organisation, planning and monitoring the delivery of our educational courses, seminars, tutorials, lectures, classroom sessions and events (including online), noting and recording your attendance at our courses and events, taking video and audio recordings of you delivering a presentation, lecture, seminar or course, taking video and audio recordings at these events, live streaming our online courses and events, making recordings of these courses and events available on demand and online, dealing with any IT issues you may encounter when attending our online events or while recording or delivering any | Categories A, B, C, D, E, I | Consent | ||
Taking individual or group photographs of you at our events for use on our website and in our publications; recording and/or broadcasting our events | Categories E and I | Consent | ||
Your dietary requirements so as to determine the food and beverages to be served at our events and/or to determine your accessibility or attendance needs (including disability hearing or speech needs) and to facilitate your attendance at our events | Category C | Consent | ||
CCTV footage of you at our events or on our premises for safety and security purposes | Category I | Comply with our legal obligations regarding safety | ||
Assignment of mentors to students (at their request) to provide them with educational support | Categories A, B | Consent | ||
Performing enquiries, investigations and complaints and gathering evidence for possible disciplinary hearing | Categories A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I | Performance of a contract with you; | ||
Administration of the Learning Management System which monitors students’ participation in our courses | Categories A, B, C, D, E, I | Performance of a contract with you | ||
Respond to your queries and assist you with your requests | Categories A,B,C,D,E,F,G, H,I | Performance of a contract with you | ||
Managing subscriptions to our products and services including TaxFind and Daily Tax News | Categories A,B,C,F,G,I | Performance of a contract with you | ||
Managing our relationship with your employer / member firm where they pay your membership fees or course or examination fees to include providing data to them on your engagement with our courses as well as information on your attendance at our assessments and courses and your assessment results as well as working with them in relation to your compliance with our Student Regulations (including CPD requirements) and in the cases where you contravene our Student Regulations (to include providing them with any personal data or documents containing personal data that may indicate contravention of such regulations) | Categories A,B,C,D,E, I | Performance of a contract with you; | ||
To process and deliver orders for our products/services including | Categories A,B,C,D,F,G,I | Performance of a contract with you; | ||
To send you relevant communications including marketing and to make suggestions and recommendations to you about products/services that may be of interest to you | Categories A,B,C,D,E,H,I | Necessary for our legitimate interests to develop our products/services and grow our business | ||
Administering the contract we | Categories | Performance of a contract with you | ||
Business operation, management and planning, including accounting and auditing as well as research purposes including assessing whether the profession is reflective of the wider population | Categories A,B,C,D,E,F,G, H,I,J | Necessary for our legitimate interests for running, managing and growing our business; | ||
Education, training and development requirements including updating and tailoring our education programme for different audiences | Categories A,B,C,D,E | Performance of a contract with you | ||
Dealing with legal disputes | Categories A,B,C,D,E,F,G, H,I | Performance of a contract with you; | ||
To prevent fraud | Categories A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I | Necessary for our legitimate interests for running, maintaining and protecting our business; | ||
To monitor your use of our information and communication systems to ensure compliance with our IT policies and regulations | Categories A,B,C,D,E,F,G,I | Performance of a contract with you; | ||
To ensure network and information security, including preventing unauthorised access to our computer and electronic communications systems and preventing malicious software distribution | Categories A,B,C,D,E,F,G,I | Performance of a contract with you; | ||
To create voice models and/or | Categories A, E | Consent; |
We have determined, acting reasonably and considering the circumstances, that we are able to rely on legitimate interests as the lawful basis on which to process your personal information in certain circumstances (we have stated this above and set out our legitimate interests).
We have reached this decision by carrying out a balancing exercise to make sure our legitimate interest does not override your privacy rights as an individual. As a result of our balancing test, which is detailed below, we have determined, acting reasonably and considering the circumstances, that we are able to process your personal data in accordance with the data protection laws on the basis that we have a legitimate business interest.
Legitimate interest | We have a legitimate interest in processing your information as:
|
Necessity | We consider that it is reasonable for us, third party service providers who host, run or cater for our events, lectures, seminars, courses and conferences (including those that prepare audio and/or video recordings of our events, lectures, seminars, courses and conferences) as well as member firms who are your employer to process your personal data for the purposes of our/their legitimate interests outlined above as we/they will process your personal data only so far as is necessary to achieve the purpose outlined in this privacy policy and retain the information for as little time as necessary. |
Impact of processing | We consider that it is reasonable for us, third party service providers who host, run or cater for our events, lectures, seminars, courses and conferences (including those that prepare audio and/or video recordings of our events, lectures, seminars, courses and conferences) and member firms to process your personal data for the purposes of our/their legitimate interests outlined above as the processing of your personal data does not unreasonably intrude on your privacy and any data we/they use has been volunteered by you for the purposes of engaging with us in relation to our events, lectures, seminars, courses and conferences as a participant or presenter or you contract with us. |
We consider that it is reasonable for us to process your information for the purposes of our legitimate interests outlined above as: (a) we process your information only so far as is necessary for such purpose; and (b) it can be reasonably expected for us to process your information in this way.
If you fail to provide personal data
If you fail to provide certain data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have entered into with you (such as paying you or providing a service to you) or we may be prevented from complying with our legal obligations.
Change of purpose
We will only use your personal data 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 data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.
Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.
“Special categories of personal data” require higher levels of protection. We have in place appropriate safeguards which we are required by law to maintain when processing such data. We may process your special categories of personal data, in limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent.
Less commonly, we may process this type of data where it is needed in relation to legal claims or where it is needed to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public.
The situations in which we will use your special categories of personal data in are as follows:
- We will use information about your physical or mental health, or disability status, to determine eligibility of students for special assistance requirements for assessments or the deferment of assessments/courses to monitor and manage sickness absence during courses.
- We will use information about your physical or mental health to determine eligibility of members or affiliates for reduced membership/affiliate rates.
- We will use information about your physical or mental health for the purpose of determining food and beverages that should be served at our events, provide you with information about accessibility to our events and/or your attendance needs at our events as well as to facilitate same.
Do we need your consent?
We do not need your consent if we use special categories of your personal data in accordance with the provisions set out under law. However, in certain circumstances, we may approach you for your written consent to allow us to process certain particularly sensitive data.
If we do so, we will provide you with full details of the information that we would like and the reason we need it, so that you can carefully consider whether you wish to consent. You should be aware that it is not a condition of your contract with us that you agree to any request for consent from us.
We will collect information about criminal convictions where we are notified of this directly by you or we are notified of this by third parties. We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:
- Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.
- 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.
We will use information about criminal convictions and offences in the following ways:
- With your explicit written consent
- Where it is necessary to perform a contract with you or to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract with you
- Where it is needed to obtain legal advice or for the purposes of or in connection with legal claims or legal proceedings (including prospective claims or proceedings)
We have in place appropriate safeguards which we are required by law to maintain when processing information about criminal convictions.
We do not envisage that any decisions will be taken about you using automated means. However, we will notify you in writing if this position changes.
Why might you share my personal data with third parties?
We will share your personal data with third parties where required by law, where it is necessary to administer the working relationship with you or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so.
Which third-party service providers process my personal data?
“Third parties” includes third-party service providers (including contractors and designated agents). The following activities are carried out by third-party service providers: payroll and administration, hosting CRM system, credit card and payment providers, providers of on-line registration and direct debit forms, media monitoring, printers, IT service and support providers, online assessment/exam and online invigilation, webcasting and video hosting providers, educational technology providers and commercially available AI tools.
How secure is my data with third-party service providers?
All our third-party service providers are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal data in line with our policies. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes except where indicated below. Otherwise, we only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.
Where your personal data is shared with ElevenLabs, your personal data may be used by ElevenLabs for the following purposes:
- To improve ElevenLabs’ services, and to develop new services and products.
- For ElevenLabs’ own business purposes, such as data analysis, benchmarking, technical support, product development, research and development of its AI models, improvement of its systems and technologies, and compliance with law.
- To verify that the voice featured in other audio recordings you provided is yours.
- To protect against and prevent malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, illegitimate, or illegal activity, and to prevent the generation of “Deep Fakes.” ElevenLabs may use this data to help defend itself in the event of a claim arising out of any attempted unlawful use of ElevenLabs’ services. When ElevenLabs process your voice data for identity verification purposes, your voice data may constitute biometric data.
- To understand the usage of ElevenLabs’ services, to understand trends and preferences, to improve and repair errors in ElevenLabs’ services, and to develop new products, services, features, and functionalities.
- To generate deidentified or aggregate data that ElevenLabs may use for any lawful purposes including product and service improvement activities, research, and other similar purposes. ElevenLabs will maintain and use data in an anonymous or deidentified format. Unless required by law, ElevenLabs will not attempt to reidentify the information.
- To address any administrative or legal issues pertaining to ElevenLabs, including without limitation intellectual property infringement, defamation, rights of privacy issues, to ElevenLabs’ Terms of Service, or as necessary to establish, exercise or defend ElevenLabs’ legal rights or to respond to requests or communications from law enforcement agencies, regulatory bodies and public authorities.
When will you share my data with third parties?
We may share your personal data with other third parties, for example in the context of the possible sale or restructuring of our business.
We may also share your personal data with:
- affiliate associations with whom the Institute operate joint qualification schemes in order to operates such schemes or with whom the Institute co-host events and seminars (such as the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners Ireland, the Institute of Management Consultants and Advisers and LIA)
- your employers where they are paying your membership fees or course or examination fees to confirm that you are engaging with the course (e.g. attending lectures, tutorials and assessments, viewing online lectures, completing e-learning modules and participating in the discussion fora in the Learning Management System) as well as advising them of your assessment results and attendance record and of any contraventions by you of our Student Regulations (such as plagiarism or personation) as well as providing them with any personal data or documents containing personal data that may indicate contravention of such regulations) and confirming with them (as well as ensuring) your compliance with our Student Regulations (including CPD requirements)
- third parties involved in hosting or organising an event such as hotels where you book beverages, food and/or accommodation for an event or conference through the Institute, catering companies, hospitality staff at event location
- other event attendees/delegates by way of an attendee/delegate list, seating plan or conferring booklets
- the general public as we publish a members’ directory on our site but only limited personal data is released
- our professional and legal advisors and other third parties in order to investigate complaints and disciplinary matters or to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights
- third party companies that distribute our publications on our behalf
In the case of students, we may also share certain personal data with your mentors, subject to obtaining your prior consent. We may also share your personal data with lecturers for the purposes of their confirming your attendance at our courses.
We may also need to share your personal data with a regulator, law enforcement authorities or to otherwise comply with the law.
Transferring Data outside the EU
We may transfer your personal data outside the EU. If we do, we will only transfer your personal data outside the EU if one of the following conditions applies:
- The EU has issued regulations confirming that the country to which we transfer the personal data ensures an adequate level of protection for your rights and freedoms; or
- Appropriate safeguards are in place such as binding corporate rules, standard contractual clauses, an approved code of conduct or a certification mechanism, a copy of which can be obtained from us; or
- You have provided explicit consent to the proposed transfer after being informed of any potential risks; or
- The transfer is necessary for one of the other reasons set out in the GDPR including the performance of a contract between us and you, for reasons of public interest, to establish, exercise or defend legal claims or to protect your vital interests where you are physically or legally incapable of giving consent and, in some limited cases, for our legitimate interest.
Where your Category A and E data is processed by ElevenLabs, it may be transferred to the US, UK or Singapore. Appropriate safeguards (namely standard contractual clauses under Article 46 of the GDPR) have been put in place to protect your personal data (unless the transfer is to a country that has been determined to provide an adequate level of protection). Please contact us if you want to access or obtain a copy of these agreements.
Our Use of New Technologies
We may occasionally adopt new technology tools and develop innovative digital solutions of our own to ensure that our internal processes are as efficient and cost-effective as possible as well as to improve our products and services. Such tools may leverage artificial intelligence or cloud-based technologies owned by third parties.
New technology tools may be used for the following purposes:
To automate repetitive tasks;
To help manage emails, meetings and tasks;
To improve our products and services; and
To develop, test and train the tools themselves.
Prior to the adoption of any tool which takes advantage of artificial intelligence or cloud-based functionality, we conduct an extensive due diligence process so as to ensure that confidentiality, security and the transparent, ethical use of new technologies are always prioritised.
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed.
In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know.
They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.
How long will you use my data for?
We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint, investigation or disciplinary action or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect of our relationship with you.
To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means and the applicable legal requirements.
In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such data without further notice to you.
Your duty to inform us of changes
It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your working relationship with us.
Your rights in connection with your personal data
Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:
- Request access to your personal data. This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
- Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.
- Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).
- Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes.
- Request the restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal data about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
- Request the transfer of your personal data to another party.
If you want to exercise any of the above rights, please contact Martin Carney in writing at Irish Tax Institute, South Block, Longboat Quay, Grand Canal Harbour, Dublin 2, or contact us by email us at dataprivacy@taxinstitute.ie. If you wish to access your personal details, you can use our Request Form.
No fee usually required
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.
What we may need from you and Response Time to Request
We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.
We will respond to your request in writing, or orally if requested, as soon as practicable and in any event within one month of receipt of your request. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.
In circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal data for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact dataprivacy@taxinstitute.ie.
Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your data for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.
If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal data, please contact Martin Carney at dataprivacy@taxinstitute.ie.
You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC), the Irish supervisory authority for data protection issues.
We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the DPC, so please contact us in the first instance.
We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time and we will provide you with a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates.
We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal data.
If you have any questions about this privacy notice, please contact Martin Carney at dataprivacy@taxinstitute.ie.
Last Updated: March 2026