Privacy
Last updated 28 October 2026
Who we are
Design System, a business run by Justin McCarthy in Co. Kerry, Ireland, runs designsystem.ie. We decide how the personal data described here is used, which makes us its controller under the GDPR. For anything about your data, email hello@designsystem.ie.
What we collect, and why
When you use the contact form, we receive your name, your email address and your message. With it we also record the time it was sent, the country your connection comes from (worked out from your IP address, which itself isn't stored) and your browser's user agent, so we can spot spam and abuse.
We use this only to read and reply to your enquiry and to keep a record of the conversation. Our legal basis is taking steps you've asked for before a possible contract (GDPR Article 6(1)(b)) and, for the spam checks, our legitimate interest in keeping the form usable (Article 6(1)(f)).
We don't add you to a mailing list, send marketing, sell your details or share them with anyone except the service providers below.
What stays in your browser
The site sets no cookies and runs no analytics or advertising trackers. It does keep a few settings in your browser's local storage, which never leave your device:
- your light or dark theme
- whether sound is on
- the floor's grid settings, if you've changed them
You can clear these at any time in your browser's settings.
Services that handle data for us
- Cloudflare hosts the site, receives the contact form and delivers it to us by email. Like any web host, it processes your IP address to serve pages and protect the site.
- Google (Gmail) holds our inbox, where your message is kept.
- Google Fonts serves the typefaces. Your browser fetches them directly, so Google sees your IP address.
- Open-Meteo provides the weather shown in the contact panel. Your browser asks it for Kerry's weather; nothing about you is sent beyond the request itself.
Some of these providers are based outside the EU. Where your data is transferred out of the EU, it's covered by the EU–US Data Privacy Framework or the European Commission's standard contractual clauses.
How long we keep it
We keep enquiries for 24 months after our last contact, then delete them. If you become a client, our correspondence becomes part of the project record and is kept for as long as Irish tax and company law requires.
Your rights
You can ask us to show you the data we hold about you, correct it, delete it, limit how we use it, or give you a copy to take elsewhere. You can also object to how we use it. Email hello@designsystem.ie and we'll reply within a month.
If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, you can complain to the Data Protection Commission at dataprotection.ie.
Changes
If we change how we handle your data, we'll update this page and the date at the top.