Who are We?

Bonkers Money Limited t/a bonkers.ie a company registered in Ireland under company registration number 477742 and having its registered office at Nutley Building, Nutley Lane, Dublin 4, is a data controller in relation to the personal data you disclose to us.

Bonkers.ie is a price comparison website and the only website in Ireland that allows you to compare prices and switch across a range of energy, broadband, mortgage and insurance providers meaning you can save on all your household bills in the one place.

Gas & Electricity, Broadband, Phone & TV

Our comparison services allow users to easily compare providers both on price and service offerings and to then switch between providers. We are accredited by the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) as an accurate, impartial and independent provider of energy price comparisons.

Insurance and Mortgages

We are a life and general insurance broker. We hold agencies with a number of life and general insurance companies. We use the data you give us to find you the most suitable protection products as well as home and motor insurance products.
We are a mortgage broker. We hold appointments with a number of mortgage providers. We use the data you give us to assist you with mortgage applications.

Bonkers Money Limited is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland as an insurance intermediary registered under the European Union (Insurance Distribution) Regulations 2018 and as a mortgage credit intermediary under the European Union (Consumer Mortgage Credit Agreements) Regulations 2016

For the purposes of the GDPR, the data controller is:

David Kerr

Our GDPR Owner and data protection representatives can be contacted directly here:

privacy@bonkers.ie

General Information

We are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. We wish to be transparent on how we process your data and show you that we are accountable with the GDPR in relation to not only processing your data but ensuring you understand your rights.

When we refer to ‘we’ it is Bonkers Money Ltd t/a bonkers.ie

Please read this Statement carefully as this sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect (i) any changes in technology or legislation (ii) the products or services we provide and/or (iii) how we operate our business which may affect the way in which information relating to you is used by us and how you as a user, can manage it.

Please note that certain words and phrases have specific meanings. Please see the definitions section in our Terms of Use for details of these defined terms.

If you have any queries or concerns regarding the policy, you should contact us. We recommend that you also review our Cookie Policy which will provide you with more specific information relating to the types of cookies that are used on our website. Please also review our Terms of Use which set out the terms and conditions on which we provide our services.

Why are we processing your data? Our legal basis.

We are required to collect and process your personal data to provide our services and to perform any contract you enter into with us. We may also be required to collect personal data to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.

Where you consent to our use of optional cookies or to provide optional information to us and where we analyse your usage of our services and website, we do so as part of our legitimate interest in running our business and improving the services we provide to you. Where we rely on this legal basis to collect and use your personal information, we shall take appropriate steps to ensure the processing does not infringe the rights and freedoms conferred to you under the applicable data privacy laws. In summary, our reason (lawful reason) for processing your data under the GDPR may be:

you have provided explicit consent
to meet our contractual obligations to you
to comply with our legal obligations
for the purpose of pursuing our legitimate interests

In any event, Bonkers Money Ltd t/a bonkers.ie is committed to ensuring that the information we collect and use is appropriate and not excessive and does not constitute an invasion of your privacy.

The information we collect

Gas & Electricity, Broadband, Phone & TV

Unregistered User: If you have not registered with us, we may collect and retain information from and about you if you interact with us through our website, contact our call centre, receive and respond to emails, post on our website, use social media and other forms of communication. Depending on whether or not you apply to a Provider for a service or product, this information may include the following:

your name, home address, email address, phone numbers and date of birth;
data relating to your usage of electricity and gas;
the company that you currently use to provide the relevant products or services;
your IP address, browser type and operating system, website browsing patterns on our website (e.g., through cookies) and purchase history;
other information you actively submit to us or we can determine about you based on your interactions with our website, call centre team and other services; and
whether or not you purchased a service or product from a Provider

We may also obtain further information depending on your interactions with us, including, posting comments on the blog on our website, visiting any page online that displays our ads or content or connecting and interacting with us via integrated social networking tools.

Registered User: In addition to the information we may hold for unregistered users, when you register with us (which is optional) we may specifically ask you for this information and other additional information that we believe can assist us in providing a more comprehensive service to you (e.g. your GPRN and MPRN). As a registered user, you will be able to log on to our website and change this information.

Optional services: On occasion, we may also ask you for other personal information in connection with surveys, sweepstakes or other promotional offers running on our website. Your participation in these features is purely voluntary.

Insurance and Mortgages

We collect and process information about you that we require to arrange insurance products and mortgages and to comply with regulatory obligations. This information may include:

your name, home address, email, phone numbers, date of birth, PPS number
proof of identity documents – typically passport or driving licence
for mortgages – proof of earnings and income
for car insurance – details of vehicle, insurance history, and for each driver to be insured, their driver number, number of penalty points and claims history
for home insurance – details of property, claims history, and specified items
for life insurance – previous medical history and GP details

Special Categories of personal data

If we are required to collect any special categories of personal data (e.g. health, religious beliefs, racial, ethnic origin – financial information is not classified as special categories of personal data), we will ensure that we obtain your explicit consent.

All services

Information automatically tracked: While on our website, we automatically log certain information about how you're using our website. This information may include the URL that you just came from, your IP address and the pages you visit while on our website.

Other tracking information: Bonkers Money Limited engages the services of a third party analytics provider to track and analyse usage and volume statistical information from our users and visitors to our website. We may also place a pixel on pages on our website, or those of our advertisers and partners. This enables us to record in our server logs that a specific username/ID has visited a particular page. This data allows us to analyse and determine our audience's behavioural characteristics, which helps us to optimise our website, advertisement placement, and marketing focus. Please see our Cookie Policy which provides more complete information about our use of cookies and your right to accept all, some or no cookies.

How do we find your address / Eircode?

When you use our website and complete a form that asks for your address you will see that you are given a choice of letting us find your address for you or clicking a link to enter your address manually. When you use our search facility the search that is carried out is a search of the National Postcode System known as “Eircode”. By using this search facility and not opting to enter your address manually you are consenting to our use of Eircode and the use of the address and eircode that is provided. It is important that you check the details provided to ensure that the address shown is correct. We will use the address in the same manner as if you had inputted the address manually. If you wish to find out more about Eircode and the terms on which the Eircode service is provided please see the Eircode Code of Practice. This contains an Acceptable Use Policy and it tells you more about how Eircode processes your address and eircode, including data protection and privacy issues. Please also see the Eircode Privacy Policy.

Use of cookies

We also use a feature known as a cookie. Cookies contain bits of information that websites transfer to your computer's hard drive for record keeping purposes.

Cookies can make the web more useful by storing information about your preferences on a particular website such as ours. Cookies are used by us in the following ways:

to automatically access your previously stored account information and deliver more personalised services
to estimate our audience size and usage patterns.

Advertising networks that serve ads onto our website may also use cookies, but please note that we neither control nor have access to those cookies. These advertisers' uses of cookies are subject to their own privacy policies and not this Privacy Policy and our Cookies Policy.

Please see our Cookie Policy which provides more complete information about our use of cookies and your right to accept all, some or no cookies.

How we use the information we collect

Application by you to purchase goods and services: We use your personal data primarily to provide the services we have contracted to provide to you, which may be advising on and arranging life insurance and/or mortgage products or arranging for you to switch a gas, electricity, broadband, tv or phone provider.

If you decide to purchase any of the products or services that appear on our website and you make an application to the relevant Provider we may need to pass to the Provider information relating to you in order for the application and subsequent purchase transaction to take place and in order for us to record our involvement in that transaction. In particular, we will pass to the Provider the information that you provide when completing application forms for the relevant product or service. We may also pass your information to our trusted partners who will assist you with purchasing products and services.

More customised service: We collect personal information to provide you, the website user, with the best and most personalised web experience possible and to provide our advertisers with an efficient means to reach the right audience. In short, by knowing a little about you, we can deliver more relevant content and advertisements to you while at our website and thus, provide you with a more efficient, customised and seamless experience when using our service.

Internal research: Cookies and the other information we automatically track are used to help us better understand how our audience uses our website as well as for internal research on users' demographics and interests. Each browser accessing our website is given a unique cookie which is then used to determine usage patterns, and to help in targeting content and ads based on user interests.

To contact you: We may email you our newsletters or other information about our various products and services or other products and services available through our price comparison and switching services that we feel may interest you. We will also email you if you have partially completed a form on our website. If you would rather not receive these communications, please adjust your email subscription via your account settings. If you do not have a bonkers.ie account there is also a link at the bottom of each newsletter or other communication which will allow you to unsubscribe yourself, or alternatively you can contact us and we will help you.

Other Purposes: We may use your information to process your queries, to send you reminders and technical/administrative information, to perform our internal administrative, financial, legal and compliance functions and to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes and enforce our legal agreements.

Who we may share your personal information with?

We do not give, rent, lend or sell individual information to any third party for marketing purposes.

We will not disclose any personally identifiable information about individual users, except as described below:

Providers to whom you make an application: When you use our comparison services to make an application to a Provider (e.g. an electricity or broadband company) we need to share your information with them so they can set you up as a customer. We only send them the information you give us relating to your application. Unless you specifically ask us to retain your information, or if you register with us, we remove some of this information from our systems after it is no longer required by us (i.e. once your application to your service provider has been processed).
To insurance and mortgage providers we have agencies with: When you ask us to arrange insurance or mortgage products for you we will share your information with the insurance companies and mortgage providers we have agencies with so that they can process your application. We only send them the information you give us relating to your application, or information they require to meet regulatory obligations. We are obliged to keep information provided to us in relation to these activities as dictated by regulation.
Requests by government agencies: We will disclose any information we have in our possession to law enforcement, regulatory or other governmental bodies (and their respective officers) in response to any inquiry or investigation or if, in our sole discretion, we believe it is necessary or appropriate in connection with any investigation or activity that is, or may be, illegal or if we believe that not making a disclosure may expose us or you to legal liability.
Lawful disclosures: We will make disclosures if we are legally required, or entitled to, make them under any enactment, rule of law or by the order of a court.
Business sale or reorganisation: In the event that we reorganise our business we may transfer your information to another company owned and controlled by us. In the event that we propose to sell any business or assets to a third party, we may (i) transfer anonymised information relating to you to one or more prospective third party purchasers and (ii) and transfer your personal information to the purchaser(s) of the business or assets if the transaction is completed.
Third party service providers: We may employ the services of third parties to aid us in certain aspects of our operations (such as the distribution of our email products or conducting a survey for us). Depending on the services performed, some of these providers may be provided with your information. These contractors are subject to data protection and confidentiality agreements which limit their use and disclosure of all information they obtain through their relationship with us to business relating to us only, consistent with this policy.
Trusted Partners: We work with third parties who have access to, or who can provide, certain products and services that we cannot, or do not, provide directly to you. Before we provide any information to these trusted partners we will inform you that your information will be provided to them. These trusted partners will then contact you directly in relation to the products and services that they can provide to you and how they will use your personal information.

We may disclose any information from which you cannot be personally identified to third parties including:

Current or prospective advertisers/partners: We may provide aggregate, non-personally identifiable information such as demographics and website usage statistics, to our current and prospective advertisers, sponsors and business partners. For example, we might tell advertisers that we have 120,000 registered users in Dublin, but we won't tell them that you are one of them, and we won't tell them your email address or other contact details.
Third-Party Ad Serving and Audience and Traffic Measurement Services: We may use a third-party network advertiser to serve the advertisements on this website or we may use an audience or traffic measurement service to analyse the traffic on this website. Network advertisers are third parties that display advertisements based on your visits to our website and other websites you have visited. Third-party ad serving enables us to target advertisements to you for products or websites you might be interested in. Audience and traffic measurement services allow us to collect anonymous traffic and behavioural information from the website by monitoring anonymous visitor activity. This website’s advertisers, sponsors, ad networks and/or traffic measurement services may themselves set and access their own cookies on your computer if you choose to have your cookies enabled in your browser. Please see our Cookie Policy which provides more complete information about our use of cookies and your right to accept all, some or no cookies.

International Transfers

We may transfer your personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA). These countries do not always afford an equivalent level of privacy protection and in such circumstances we take specific steps, in accordance with data protection law to protect your personal information. In particular, for transfers of personal data outside the EEA we rely either on an adequacy decision by the European Commission or on contractual protection approved by the European Commission.

Security – How we store your information

Bonkers Money Limited is committed to protecting your personal information. All information that you provide to us is stored on our secure servers.

Access to any personalised area of our website is password-protected for your privacy and security. While we do our best to protect your personal information, Bonkers Money Limited cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk. What does all this mean? Just as in the real world, you must protect yourself. You are responsible for maintaining the secrecy of your passwords and/or any account information.

Connecting through Social Networks

We are aware that many of our customers use social networks to interact with friends and colleagues and to share information.

If you have an account with us and use our website and are logged into a social network at the same time, you may connect your social network account with your bonkers.ie account. You may be asked for verification information by us or by the social network

If you do not have an account with us and you use our website’s social network connection functions, you will first be asked to enter your social network credentials and then be given the option to set up an account with us. Once you register with us and connect with the social network, you will be able to automatically post recent bonkers.ie activity back to your social network.

By using our website’s social network connection function, you will be giving us permission to access your social network profile that you have made available to be shared (as per the settings chosen by you in your social network profile) and to use it in accordance with the social network’s terms of use and this Privacy Policy.

We recommend that you review and adjust your privacy settings in your social network account to ensure that you are only sharing with us and others information that you wish to share.

Direct mailings

If you register with us or, even if you have not registered with us, you have provided us with your email address when availing of any of our services, in order to provide you with the best service, we may send you newsletters or other information about various products and services or other products and services available through our price comparison and switching services that we feel may be of interest you. Only we will send this information to you.

In the event that you start to complete a form on our website and for some reason you do not complete that process, we will send you an email and/or text message to remind you and we will save the information that you have already completed in order for you to more easily complete the form. If you do not complete the form within 30 days the information that you inserted will automatically expire.

If you would rather not receive these communications and you are a registered user, you may adjust your email subscription via your account settings. For all users, there is a link at the bottom of each communication which will allow you to unsubscribe yourself, or alternatively you can email us privacy@bonkers.ie and we will help you.

How long will we retain your personal information?

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, or regulatory requirements. This means that the period of time for which we store your personal data may depend on the type of data we hold. The retention period for each category of personal data is set out in our retention schedule along with the criteria used to determine this period, including any statutory obligations we have. For example in order to comply with regulatory obligations we are required to retain information in relation to insurance and mortgage services provided for a period of 6 years. Should you require further information we would be happy to provide it.

Your rights as a data subject

We facilitate your rights in line with our data protection policy and subject access request procedure which are available on request.

Right of access– you have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you
Right of rectification– you have a right to correct data that we hold about you that is inaccurate or incomplete
Right to be forgotten– in certain circumstances you can ask for the data we hold about you to be erased from our records
Right to restriction of processing– where certain conditions apply to have a right to restrict the processing
Right of portability– you have the right to have the data we hold about you transferred to another organisation
Right to object– you have the right to object to certain types of processing such as direct marketing
Right to object to automated processing, including profiling– you also have the right to be subject to the legal effects of automated processing or profiling

Should you wish to exercise any of your rights please contact us at privacy@bonkers.ie.

Complaints

If you are not satisfied with our use of your personal data or our response to any request by you to exercise any of your rights listed above, then you have the right to complain to the Data Protection Commission (DPC). Please see below for contact details of the DPC.

Address: Data Protection Commission, 21 Fitzwilliam Square South, Dublin 2, D02 RD28.

Phone: 01 7650100 / 1800437 737,

Email: info@dataprotection.ie.

Online: https://forms.dataprotection.ie/contact

Other data controllers and processors

This Privacy Policy only deals with the collection, processing and use (including disclosure) of information by us through your interaction with our website, social media or directly with us by phone or other written or electronic means.

Many of our advertisers or partners, such as insurance companies, link from our website to areas on their own sites where they sell their own goods and services. If you follow these links from our website to theirs, you should be aware that these other websites have their own privacy and data collection, processing and disclosures practices. We have no responsibility or liability for these independent policies. We encourage you to familiarise yourself with the privacy statements provided by these other parties prior to providing them with information.

Changes to this privacy statement

As stated above, we may amend this privacy statement from time to time. When such a change is made, we will post a revised version online. Changes will be effective from the point at which they are posted. It is your responsibility to review this Privacy Policy periodically so you’re aware of any changes. By using our services you agree to this Privacy Policy

Network intrusion detection systems

Network-based IDS (intrusion detection system) provides 24x7 network monitoring and alerts security personnel to any external attacks on the network.