At the Single Electricity Market Operator (“SEMO”), we take our obligations under data protection law very seriously and we're committed to keeping your personal data private and secure.

This statement is designed to help you understand what Personal Data we hold, why we collect it, why it is required, what we do with it and how we protect it. It also explains your rights in relation to how we hold and use your personal data, how to exercise those rights, and what to do if more information is required or a complaint is to be made. 

This privacy notice applies to all Personal Data we hold, irrespective of any relationship with us.

We respect your right to privacy.  If you have any questions about how we use your information, then please write to: the Data Protection Officer DataProtection@sem-o.com or via post:

ROI: SEMO, The Oval, 160 Shelbourne Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, D04 FW28  

NI: SEMO, Castlereagh House, 12 Manse Road, Belfast, BT6 9RT.

About SEMO

The Single Electricity Market Operator (SEMO) facilitates the continuous operation and administration of the Single Electricity Market. SEMO is a joint venture between EirGrid plc and SONI Limited. The organisation is managed as a contractual joint venture between EirGrid, the Transmission System Operator (TSO) for Ireland, and SONI, the TSO for Northern Ireland. SEMO is licensed and regulated cooperatively by the Commission for Regulation of Utilities in Ireland and the Utility Regulator for Northern Ireland.

In this privacy statement, the terms "we", "our", and "us" are used to refer to SEMO. SEMO is a “Controller” under the General Data Protection Regulation ((EU) 2016/679) (“GDPR”) and the UKGDPR in respect of certain Personal Data you furnish to us. For the avoidance of doubt given the joint venture status of SEMO, ultimate and final “Controller” liabilities rest with EirGrid plc and SONI Limited.

This Privacy Notice explains the following:

  • How we collect and use your Personal Data
  • The purpose and legal basis for collecting your Personal Data
  • How we store and secure Personal Data
  • Details of third parties with who we share Personal Data
  • Information on your rights

What is Personal Data?

“Personal Data” is any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (“Data Subject”); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier such as a user IP addresses or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person and includes Special Categories of Personal Data;

"Special Categories of Personal Data" is any Personal Data that reveals racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade-union membership; genetic data or biometric data and data concerning health or sex life and sexual orientation.

Technical data collected

When you visit the SEMO website, we gather statistical and other analytical information collected on an aggregate basis of all visitors to our website. This non-personal data comprises information that cannot be used to identify or contact you, such as demographic information regarding, for example, user IP addresses where they have been clipped or anonymised, browser types and other anonymous statistical data involving the use of our website. We also collect certain information by the use of cookies. Cookies are small text files that web servers can store on your computer's hard drive when you visit a website. They allow the server to recognise you when you revisit the website and to tailor your web browsing experience to your specific needs and interests. For more information on our use of cookies, please see our Cookies Policy.  

How we collect and use your Personal Data?

We use, or process, a number of different categories of personal data. 

Information you give us – this is information about you that you give us when engaging with SEMO for example by filling in forms, responding to questionnaires or by corresponding with us by e-mail, phone, facsimile, post or face-to-face meetings or an information gathering exercise which relates to SEMO's general business or responsibility for operating the wholesale electricity market in Ireland and Northern Ireland. The information that you give us will include some or all of the following (depending on the circumstances):

  • your name, date of birth, contact details;
  • current and previous address, occupation, nationality, citizenship, photo or other I.D. confirmation;
  • company ownership, company bank details;
  • your views and feedback on SEMO’s business or role as Market Operator
  • records of any consents you have given; and
  • your use of the SEMO website.

We may record telephone calls you make to us for training or quality purposes. Where you provide information about others you must ensure that you have their consent or are otherwise entitled to provide this information to us.

Information we receive from other sources – this is information about you that we receive from other sources such as our business partners (e.g. EirGrid plc, SONI Limited), or from publicly available sources such as (but not limited to) the Companies Registration Office/ UK Companies House.

The purpose and legal basis for collecting your Personal Data

Our core business is to operate the wholesale electricity market in Ireland and Northern Ireland. To this end we use information held about you in the following ways (as applicable):

  • to establish and maintain records associated with Parties, Participants and Units in the Single Electricity Market;
  • to manage Party accession to the Trading and Settlement Code;
  • to ensure we are engaging with the correct Participant/stakeholder;
  • to verify the accuracy of the data you have to provided to us;
  • to keep you informed about the operation of the Single Electricity Market;
  • to develop the Single Electricity Market (as required under legislation);
  • to manage the operation of a competitive, sustainable and reliable Single Electricity Market;
  • to meet our obligations to our regulators; and
  • to deal with your enquiries and requests (e.g. Trading & Settlement Code Disputes, complaints handling).

Data protection laws require that we meet certain conditions in order to use your data in the manner described in this privacy statement.  We rely on the following legal grounds in order to process your data:

The processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of an official authority vested in SEMO.

The processing is also necessary for a legal obligation to which SEMO is subject.

Pursuant to the Market Operator licences, SEMO facilitates the continuous operation and administration of the Single Electricity Market and in doing so is required to process the information about you referred to in this document. 

We only use this information to allow us to ensure we deal with participants and other stakeholders in an appropriate manner.   

How we store and secure your Personal Data

Any data we collect from you will be stored confidentially and securely. EirGrid are committed to ensuring all accesses to, uses of, and processing of Personal Data is performed in a secure manner.

We will retain information about you for the period necessary to fulfil the purposes for which the information was collected. After that, we will delete it. The retention period may vary depending on the purposes for which the information was collected.

Where a specific legal or regulatory requirement (including the Trading & Settlement Code) applies to your information we will retain it for the period of time specified in such legal or regulatory requirement. In the absence of a specific legal or regulatory requirement we will retain your information for the applicable statutory limitation period following the end of the matter to which it relates. We may be required to extend the retention period if the information is required in relation to a complaint, investigation, judicial review, a claim or litigation.

Please also note that we are sometimes legally obliged to retain original legal documents, such as deeds, indefinitely.

Details of Details of third parties with who we share Personal Data with

We may share your personal information with the following: EirGrid plc the Transmission System Operator, SONI Limited the Transmission System Operator for Northern Ireland, Meter Registration System Operator (MRSO), Retail Market Design Service (RMDS), Northern Ireland Electricity Network (NIE), Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) and the Utility Regulatory (UR) in Northern Ireland.

We will only disclose your information:

  • to business partners (e.g. EirGrid plc, SONI Limited.), service providers and consultants for the performance of any contract we enter into with them;
  • to third party service providers to the extent they assist us with our legal / regulatory obligations or are business operations;
  • to our regulators for the purposes of complying with our regulatory obligations;
  • to our Dispute Resolution Panel for the purposes of complying with our Trading & Settlement Code obligations
  • to law enforcement agencies as well as our legal advisors, courts any other authorised bodies, for the purposes of investigating any actual or suspected criminal activity or other regulatory or legal matters etc.
  • in the event of any insolvency or winding up situation (e.g. the administration or liquidation) of EirGrid plc or SONI Limited
  • to protect the rights, and property of our staff, Participants and other stakeholders.  This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of staff and stakeholder safety; and
  • if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation or regulatory requirements, or otherwise for the prevention or detection of fraud or crime.

Transfers of your personal data outside the European Union

The data that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the European Economic Area (the "EEA").

When we send personal data overseas, SEMO will ensure that suitable safeguards are in place, in accordance with data protection requirements, to protect the data. In all cases these safeguards will be one of the following:

Sending the data to a country that's been approved by the European authorities as having a suitably high standard of data protection law.
Putting in place a contract with the recipient containing terms approved by the European authorities as providing a suitable level of protection.

Information on your rights

You have a number of rights under data protection law in relation to the way we process your personal data.

Right of Access: You have the right to request a copy of the Personal Data we are processing about you and to exercise that right easily and at reasonable intervals.

Consent: You have the right to withdraw your consent where that is the legal basis of processing.

Rectification: You have the right to have inaccuracies in Personal Data that we hold about you rectified.

Erasure: You have the right to have your Personal Data deleted where we no longer have any justification for retaining it subject to exemptions such as the use of pseudonymised data for scientific research.

Object: You have the right to object to processing your Personal Data if:

We have processed your data based on a legitimate interest or for the exercise of the public tasks of EirGrid if you believe the processing to be disproportionate or unfair to you; the Personal Data was processed for the purposes of direct marketing or profiling related to direct marketing; or, we have processed the Personal Data for scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes unless the processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out for reasons of public interest.

Restriction: You have the right to restrict the processing of your Personal Data if:

You are contesting the accuracy of the Personal Data; the Personal Data was processed unlawfully; you need to prevent the erasure of the Personal Data in order to comply with legal obligations; or, you have objected to the processing of the Personal Data and wish to restrict the processing until a legal basis for continued processing has been verified.

Portability: Where it is technically feasible you have the right to have a readily accessible machine readable copy of your data transferred or moved to another data controller where we are processing your data based on your consent and if that processing is carried out by automated means.

Contact us

You may contact us using the details on our website (or by contacting our DPO directly – details below) to exercise any of these rights. Please address any questions, comments and requests regarding our data processing practices to our Data Protection Officer in the first instance. Our DPO can be contacted by writing to the Data Protection Officer at DataProtection@sem-o.com or via post:

ROI: SEMO, The Oval, 160 Shelbourne Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, D04 FW28  

NI: SEMO, Castlereagh House, 12 Manse Road, Belfast, BT6 9RT.

Concerns or Complaints

If you have any concerns regarding our processing of your personal data, or are not satisfied with our handling of any request by you in relation to your rights, you also have the right to make a complaint to the relevant Data Protection Commissioner's Office.

The Data Protection Commissioner’s Office in Ireland contact details are:
Telephone: +353 1 7 650100 / 1800 437 737
E-mail: info@dataprotection.ie
Postal Addresses:
Data Protection Commissioner                       Data Protection Commissioner
Canal House                                                   21 Fitzwilliam Square South
Station Road                                                   D02 RD28 Dublin 2
Portarlington
R32 AP23 Co Laois

The Information Commissioner’s Office in Northern Ireland’s contact details are:
Telephone: +44 28 9027 8757
E-mail: ni@ico.org.uk
Postal Address:
The Information Commissioner’s Office – Northern Ireland
3rd Floor
14 Cromac Place
Belfast
BT72JB

Changes to our Privacy Statement

We may update this privacy statement from time to time.  Any changes we may make in the future will be posted on this page and where appropriate we will endeavour to bring the changes to your attention by other means.

Last updated: 15 September 2022