Why We Need It
We need to know both basic and sensitive medical data in order to provide you with the dental services you have engaged us to provide, and to assert our right to be recompensed for these services, in line with the agreement or contract we have with you, our patient. If this information is not provided to us by you, we will not be in a position to treat you at our practice. We will only collect data that is relevant to the provision of your dental treatment, and to effectively communicate with you about this treatment, and nothing more. It is important that you notify us of any changes in your personal details, your medical or dental status at your earliest convenience to ensure we hold accurate and high quality records for you.
How Long We Keep It
In line with the Dental Council of Ireland’s Code of Practice in relation to Professional Behaviour and Ethical Conduct, we will keep adult patient records (both basic and sensitive medical data) for eight years after the date of their last treatment. In the case of children and young adults, records will be kept until the patient’s 25th birthday; or their 26th birthday if the young person was 17 when they finished treatment. If a patient dies before their 18th birthday, records will be kept for eight years. After this time the records will be safely destroyed if they are no longer required for the lawful purpose (s) for which they were obtained.
What We Do With It
All the personal data we hold about you will be processed by our staff in Ireland. We will only use this data for the purposes of providing dental treatment to you, including your appointment reminders. Your appointment reminders may be sent to you by text, electronic mail or by post. There are also some third parties that may have limited access to your data for referrals and processing purposes, or to allow us to claim payment for treatment under a public scheme. They will be the Data ‘Processors’ and are as follows:
- Dept. of Social Protection (PRSI patients)
- Primary Care Reimbursement Service, HSE (Medical Card patients)
- Our IT company – Invistech Ltd. (All patients)
- Our software company – Software of Excellence UK (All patients)
- Specialist referrals (If required)
- Laboratories (If required)
Your data may also be provided to third parties where there is a legal obligation to do so. Where data is backed up remotely, this data is kept on servers located within the European Union. We take all reasonable steps to ensure your data is processed discretely and kept securely. If we require to transfer your personal information to a country outside the EU, we will take the necessary steps to ensure appropriate protection is in place in line with data protection laws.
Your rights
You are legally entitled to a photocopy of your personal data upon written request. As well as the right to access your information, you also have the right to have any inaccuracies in your data rectified and to delete and restrict the use of your information, and to withdraw any consent you have previously given us to handle your information, within legal obligations. Your request will be dealt with in a timely manner.
Data Access RequestAccess to your personal data is on a ‘need to know’ basis. This prohibits the release of your information to a spouse, partner or family member without your explicit consent. A guardian or carer may have the right to access information in the case of vulnerable adults or those with diminished mental capacity. A parent or guardian will have access to your personal information if you are less than 16 years of age.
IP Addresses
We may collect information about your computer, including where available your IP address, operating system and browser type, for system administration and to report aggregate information to our advertisers. This is statistical data about our users’ browsing actions and patterns, and does not identify any individual.
Information We May Collect From You
- Information that you provide by filling in forms on our website. This includes information provided at the time of registering to use our site, subscribing to our service, posting material or requesting further services. We may also ask you for information when you enter a competition or promotion sponsored by us or when you report a problem with our website.
- If you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence.
- We may also ask you to complete surveys that we use for research purposes, although you do not have to respond to them.
- To help us recognise you when you return to the website and personalise your visit.
- Details of your visits to our website (including, but not limited to, traffic data, location data, weblogs and other communication data, whether this is required for our own purposes or otherwise) and the resources that you access.
- You warrant that all information you provide to us is accurate and up-to-date.

