Privacy policy
At Demoscopy, we are committed to protecting your personal data and respecting your privacy. This data privacy statement explains how we collect, use, and protect your personal data in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.
1- RESPONSIBLE PARTY AND DATA PROTECTION OFFICER
The responsible entity for the processing of your personal data is:
Demoscopy SRL
Cantersteen, 47
1000 Brussels – Belgium
BE 0886.989.972
letstalk@demoscopy.com
In certain cases, we process data to conduct studies as a processor. In this case, the responsible party for data processing is our client. If this is the case, we will explicitly inform you of this fact and the identity of the responsible party before conducting the survey. We have agreed with our client on appropriate guarantees for the protection of your personal data, so that anonymity and confidentiality of your participation are maintained in any case and also vis-à-vis our client, and the protection of your personal data does not fall below the level described below. Further information can be found under point 6 of this privacy statement.
2- COLLECTION AND PROCESSING OF DATA
2.1. Collection of Personal Data
We collect personal data when you voluntarily provide it to us, such as when you take a survey, sign up for a newsletter, or use our online services.
We will only collect, process, and store your personal data if you have given us explicit consent to do so. You have the right to revoke this consent at any time.
We only process personal data that you have provided to us in the course of a survey (in person, by telephone, by post, by e-mail or web-based) or contact data that we have lawfully acquired from third parties (address publishers and direct marketing companies).
We will only collect and process personal data that is necessary for the purpose of a survey. We will not use your data for any other purpose without your consent.
The personal data we collect may include your name, email address, social media handle, phone number, location, demographic characteristics, data resulting from voluntary answers to questions defined by the respective study purposes and other information that you choose to provide.
In addition, we process special categories of data (“sensitive data”) resulting from demographic characteristics (e.g., religious denomination or trade union membership) or from voluntary responses to questions defined by the respective study purpose.
The provision of your personal data is voluntary. There is no legal obligation to disclose it. In the event that you do not wish to disclose your personal data, it will not be collected and consequently will not be taken into account in a study.
2.2 Use of Personal Data
We process your personal data for selection in the context of representing a population and contacting potential study participants (respondents).
We process your personal data for the purpose of market, opinion and/or social research by systematically collecting, analyzing and scientifically evaluating the answers of study participants (respondents) or survey results and to compare and draw conclusions from study results for short-, medium- and long-term studies.
We may also use your personal data to communicate with you, such as to send you newsletters or updates about our services. You have the right to opt out of these communications at any time.
2.3 Sharing of Personal Data
We do not share your personal data with third parties, except in the following circumstances:
If we are required to do so by law, or in response to a valid request from a law enforcement or government agency.
If we engage a third party service provider to perform certain functions on our behalf, such as hosting our website or conducting a survey. In these cases, we will ensure that the service provider is GDPR compliant and has appropriate measures in place to protect your personal data.
Study results are transmitted to the client of a study exclusively in anonymous form (i.e. without personal data).
Auditors are regularly commissioned by the client of a study to check compliance with the quality guidelines for market and opinion research. These auditors check whether a study meets the high scientific standards of market and opinion research. Insofar as this is necessary for the audit, personal data will be transmitted to these auditors as stated under point 2.3 of this data protection declaration.
Your personal data will not be transferred to a country with a lower level of data protection than the European Union.
A. Anonymization
We process your personal data for the purposes of market, opinion and social research in anonymized or pseudonymized form.
If a personal reference is not necessary for a study, the data required for this purpose, such as first name, last name or address, are not collected or are irrevocably separated from survey results and are not included in the study results. In these cases, it is no longer possible to trace your answers back to you personally.
B. Pseudonymization
Insofar as we are aware of personal data that allow your answers to be traced back to you, your personal data will be pseudonymized – even before they are processed for the purposes of market, opinion and/or social research.
Pseudonymization is the processing of personal data in which the data that can be traced back to a specific person (e.g. name, address and/or date of birth) are separated from the other personal data of the same person (usually the answers to questions in a study) and replaced by an identification feature (such as a code or number).
Without knowing which identification feature stands for which person, it is no longer possible to trace the other personal data (usually the answers to questions in a study) back to a specific person. The information as to which information characteristic stands for which person is stored separately and is subject to technical and organizational measures to ensure that the remaining personal data cannot be traced back to a specific person without prior authorization.
2.4 Storage of Personal Data
We store your personal data on secure servers, and have implemented appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect it from unauthorized access, alteration, or disclosure.
Your personal data will be stored for the duration of the study and beyond as needed for the validity of the study results, to demonstrate compliance with good scientific practice, and as a basis for further scientific research (showing trends in short-, medium-, and long-term studies).
3- YOUR RIGHTS
Under GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, you have the following rights with regard to your personal data:
The right to access: You have the right to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you, and to request information about how we use it.
The right to rectification: If you believe that any of the personal data we hold about you is incorrect or incomplete, you have the right to request that we rectify it.
The right to erasure: You have the right to request that we erase your personal data, unless we are required by law to retain it.
The right to restrict processing: You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data, such as by stopping the use of it for marketing purposes.
The right to object: You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data for certain purposes, such as direct marketing.
The right to data portability: You have the right to request that we transfer your personal data to another controller, in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format.
If you would like to exercise any of these rights, or if you have any questions about our data privacy practices, please contact our data protection officer: letstalk@demoscopy.com
Brussels, January 2023
