Privacy Policy
Effective Date: August 2026
This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and protect your personal information when you visit our website hosted on Squarespace and submit information through our contact form.
1. Introduction
This website is provided by the Spatial Dynamics Lab (hereinafter “we”, “us” or “our”). By visiting the Community Food Co-ops Ireland website, you are accepting the terms of the Website Data Protection Statement. Please note that this website might contain external links to other websites and we are not responsible for the data protection policies of these external websites.
2. Information We Collect
We collect and process personal data about you depending on how you interact with us. The specific categories of personal data we collect are outlined below:
A. General Website Visitors & Enquirers
When you contact us directly by email or using the contact form on our website, we collect the following personal information: First Name, Last Name, Organisation, and Email Address.
B. Website Visitors (Technical & Usage Data)
We also collect standard website usage and technical data (IP addresses, browser type and version, time zone settings, operating system) automatically via cookies and analytics provided by Squarespace to maintain site functionality and performance.
3. How We Use Your Information
We process personal information for various purposes, each with its lawful basis.
| Data | Purpose | Lawful Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Name and contact data | To respond to inquiries submitted via our contact forms or email. To communicate with you regarding research, collaborations, projects, or centre activities. | To respond to inquiries submitted via our contact forms or email. To communicate with you regarding research, collaborations, projects, or centre activities. |
| Technical, usage | To administer, secure, and optimise our website (including data analysis). | Legitimate Interests: To run our platform securely, keep content updated, and improve user experience. |
We provide this information to Squarespace, our website hosting provider, so that they can provide website services to us and help us manage our relationship with you.
4. Data Storage, Hosting & Sharing
We will take all reasonable steps (which includes relevant technical and organisational measures) to guarantee the safety of the information you provide to us and we will only use the information for the intended purpose.
Depending on how you interact with us, your data may be shared with:
Host Institution: University College Dublin (UCD, as the host institution) colleagues for administrative or research purposes directly related to your inquiry.
Squarespace: Our website is hosted on Squarespace. When you submit a form, your data is processed and stored securely through Squarespace's infrastructure. You can learn more about how Squarespace protects user data by reviewing Squarespace's Privacy Policy.
Third-Party Providers of cloud storage and communication tools (e.g., Google Workspace).
Legal and Regulatory Authorities: Statutory bodies, law enforcement, or courts where we are legally obligated to disclose information or to protect our legal rights.
We share information around the number and nature of visits to our website with our Funders and Research Partners as part of reporting metrics. Any information which we share is in anonymised aggregated form.
5. Data Security and Retention
We have put in place appropriate physical, technical, and organisational security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used, altered, disclosed, or accessed in an unauthorised way. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, researchers, and partners who have a legitimate business or academic need to know.
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, research, or reporting requirements.
6. Third-Party Services & Analytics
Our website may include links to external research centers, academic partners, or affiliate websites (such as national research institutes or partner universities). Please note that we are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of third-party websites. We encourage you to read the privacy statements of any external site you visit.
7. Cookies
This website uses cookies and similar technologies, which are small files or pieces of text that download to a device when a visitor accesses a website or app. For information about viewing the cookies dropped on your device, visit The cookies Squarespace uses.
These necessary and required cookies are always used, which allow Squarespace, our hosting platform, to securely serve this website to you.
These analytics and performance cookies are used on this website, as described below, only when you acknowledge our cookie banner. This website uses analytics and performance cookies to view site traffic, activity, and other data.
8. Your Data Rights
Under GDPR, you have the following rights regarding your personal data:
Right to access – you can request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
Right to rectification – you can correct inaccurate or incomplete data.
Right to erasure – you can request data deletion in certain circumstances.
Right to restrict processing – you can ask us to limit how your data is used.
Right to data portability – you can request a copy of your data in a format that allows transfer to another service.
Right to object – you can object to the processing of your data for certain reasons.
Right to withdraw consent – if we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time.
9. Contact Us
If you have any questions or concerns regarding this Privacy Policy or how your data is handled, please get in touch with us via our website contact form/email address.
You can also contact the UCD Data Protection Officer directly at gdpr@ucd.ie.