ACADEMY | Empathetic Survey Design - ESOMAR, the global insights community

Unless national provisions require stricter regulations, a respondent's personal identifiable data can be passed on to the client only under the following conditions;

the respondent has explicitly expressed this wish and/or
the respondent has given their explicit consent and
on the understanding that no commercial activity will be directed at them as a direct result of their having provided information.

Whilst the Code contains the key principles, ESOMAR's Notes to the Code provide more detailed guidance on how to interpret and apply the code in practice, for instance in relation to whether or not a respondent must be told if the researcher might wish to re-contact the respondent for a further interview at a later date.

ESOMAR has also issued guidelines on specific aspects of market, social and opinion research such as online research, social media research and research via mobile phone.

ESOMAR has disciplinary procedures to examine cases of possible breach of the ICC/ESOMAR Code and Notes by an ESOMAR member. Our complaints procedure outlines the steps to follow to pursue disciplinary action against an ESOMAR member.

You will be asked to provide evidence to substantiate your complaint which will be reviewed by ESOMAR's Professional Standards Committee. If it appears that the complaint has merit, ESOMAR's Disciplinary Committee will examine the allegations further and if it finds that an ESOMAR member has breached the ICC/ESOMAR Code, it can impose sanctions ranging from a private warning to expulsion from membership as well as publication of the name of the individual and the sanction imposed.

If it is absolutely necessary for researchers to do so, they must have the site operator's permission, it must be made clear to all users that this is happening and they must provide individuals with a process to opt out from such data collection.

Researchers must observe great sensitivity interacting with people in private spaces and if this needs to be done, they must observe the recommendations of the guidelines on consent and notification.

For more details, go to the Social Media Research Guidelines.

Researchers need to verify that individuals contacted by e-mail have a reasonable expectation that they will receive a contact for research. This means that all of the following conditions must exist:

A substantive pre-existing relationship exists between the individuals contacted and the research organisation, the client or the list owners providing sample for the research;
Individuals have a reasonable expectation, based on the pre-existing relationship, that they may be contacted for research;
Individuals are offered the choice to be removed from future electronic contact in each invitation in a clear and distinct way and this must be free of charge and easy to implement;
The invitation list excludes all indinviduals who have previously taken the appropriate and timely steps to request the list owner to remove them.

For more details, go to the Online Research Guidelines.

The ICC/ESOMAR Code states that personally identifiable data collected for research purposes can only be reported in an identifiable form or passed to a client if the person has explicitly expressed this wish or given their consent on the understanding that no commercial activity will be directed at them as a direct result of their having provided information. This is reflected in the Guideline on Social Media Research.

This permission should either be obtained via the social site's Terms of Use or by direct contact with the individual concerned.

If it is impossible to get permission, the information must be filtered to remove personal identifiers (if the data collection process is automated) or masked or cloaked so that the individual cannot be identified. Particular care is needed to anonymise comments on sensitive areas.

The guideline does not prohibit researchers from collecting personal data for non-research purposes, but it requires full transparency to respondents and clients in line with the ICC/ESOMAR Code which states that data collected for research purposes must not be used in any manner incompatible with these purposes.

For more details, go to the Social Media Research Guidelines.

If the data collected includes images of identifiable people, researchers either need consent from the poster to share these with the client, or they must apply techniques such as pixilation of faces.

They should however keep in mind that in some cases, this might not be sufficient to anonymise the images in some B2B contexts or when researching very small groups and they should then refrain from sharing the photos or videos.

For more details, go to the Guideline on Passive Data Collection Observation and Recording and the Social Media Research Guidelines.

Yes, the same requirements for contacting people, security and downloads apply. Researchers must also take into consideration additional issues such as how to deal with potential costs to the respondents, appropriate designs for smaller screens and how to handle location data.

For more details, go to the Online Research Guidelines.

As research studies can vary so widely, ESOMAR does not provide a standard contract, but to help both clients and research providers, it has issued a checklist of points to be considered including:

• Objectives of the research.
• Technical specifications of the study.
• Cost estimates.
• Other contractual issues.

For more details go to the ESOMAR Guideline on How to commission research - Reaching an agreement on marketing research project.

ESOMAR can provide some guidance on the rules regulating research in different countries but for details, contact the national association in the specific country. You can use the association search tool on the ESOMAR website, to find association contact details.

In the absence of any agreement to the contrary, in the case of ad hoc surveys the normal period for primary field records (e.g. original completed questionnaires or similar basic records) should be retained for one year after completion of the fieldwork and three years for continuously reporting panels unless national law requires a shorter period.

To allow questions to be answered about how the research was conducted or about the results, including after the research project has been completed, the retention period of the following records shall be as follows, unless otherwise agreed with the client:

• primary records: 12 months
• a copy of all other final versions of documents related to the research project: 24 months

The research service provider shall inform the client about the retention periods. The research service
provider and the client can agree on a longer or shorter retention period. This agreement shall be documented. If the research is later repeated, or further research is later carried out within the same project, the storage period shall be said to begin upon conclusion of the entire research project.

For more detail go to the ESOMAR Guideline on the Mutual rights and responsibilities.

ESOMAR does not recommend passing this information to the client. The distinction between market research and other data collection activities would be blurred since the research is in effect a joint effort between the researcher and the client. However, should the client wish to encourage people to respond they could send a general message to everyone on the list referring to the survey and research company, noting that some people might have already responded.

The normal approach is for the researcher to contact the individuals and remind them that they are invited to complete the questionnaire.

For more detail go to the ESOMAR Guideline on Customer Satisfaction Studies.

Some people who post comments on social media sites might not mind that their remarks are collected and shared but others might take an opposite view.

The Guideline on Passive Observation to which this type of research is most akin states "The things that people are observed doing in a public place cannot be regarded as private or inaccessible to a researcher" and "There may be instances in public places where informed consent from individuals is impossible to achieve. In those cases public notice should be given about the data collection i.e. CCTV operation". This was written to guide researchers observing behaviour in physical spaces, but the same principles should apply to observation on social platforms.

The Guideline on social media research specifically refers to the Terms of Use of social media websites as a form of notification that data might be collected from their postings. But if consent has not been obtained (directly or under the ToU) researchers must ensure that they report only depersonalised data from social media sources.

For more details, go to the Social Media Research Guidelines.

Researchers must always take all reasonable measures to ensure verifiable and explicit permission is obtained from a parent or legal guardian when inviting a child to participate in a research survey. They must avoid asking children and young people questions on topics generally regarded as sensitive and in any case handle this with extreme care. This may mean that certain types of surveys should not be undertaken. They must also avoid collecting personal information relating to other people (for example, parents) from children.

In the online environment, researchers will need to use special procedures to secure the permission of a parent before carrying out an interview with children. As an email may not guarantee that the email address given by the child is their parent's, nor that the person replying is the parent, we recommend telephone or mail confirmation directly from the parent/guardian.

Where researchers are setting out to recruit children for repeated surveys they should consider:

• Recruiting parents with children of the required age and then managing the research process with the agreement and monitoring of the activity by the parent.
• Enabling password protection of surveys so that the entry of a password known only by the parent is required which means the parent must agree to provide it before the child can proceed in the research.

Prior parental consent will not be required to collect a child's or parent's e-mail address solely to provide notice of data collection and request consent or to collect a child's age for screening and exclusion purposes. If this screening leads to the decision that a child does qualify for interview, parental consent must then be sought to continue with the interview.

For more details, go to the Online Research Guideline and the ESOMAR Guideline on Interviewing Children and Young People.

Some clients may wish to observe an interview or group discussion for quality control purposes or to gain a better understanding of the research findings.

If so, the researcher must first obtain the agreement of the respondents concerned and also ensure that the observers are fully aware and abide by the ICC/ESOMAR International Code. The researcher should also ensure that the observers are not people who are likely to know or have a direct dealing with the individual respondents being interviewed. If they do, they should be asked to stop observing.

More detail may be found in the ESOMAR Guideline on Passive Data Collection, Observation and Recording.

B2B research is a difficult area. As far as we know, only Italian data protection legislation treats companies as legal individuals but Germany also has strict rules. You should always check with the associations in the relevant countries when conducting B2B research. Contact details for associations can be found on the associations section of our website

A key issue is whether the client could identify individual responses (companies and individuals) from the data, once the client has the list of which companies took part in the survey.

If there is any doubt about whether this would be possible, then the research agency should not pass on this information without the appropriate permission.

Results should be presented in an aggregated form from which individual responses cannot be identified and in this case there should not be a problem releasing the list of companies included in the survey.

For more information visit the ESOMAR Guideline on Customer Satisfaction Studies.

The Code is based on eight key fundamentals:

1. Market researchers shall conform to all relevant national and international laws.

2. Market researchers shall behave ethically and shall not do anything which might damage the reputation of market research.

3. Market researchers shall take special care when carrying out research among children and young people.

4. Respondents' cooperation is voluntary and must be based on adequate, and not misleading, information about the general purpose and nature of the project when their agreement to participate is being obtained and all such statements shall be honoured.

5. The rights of respondents as private individuals shall be respected by market researchers and they shall not be harmed or adversely affected as the direct result of cooperating in a market research project.

6. Market researchers shall never allow personal data they collect in a market research project to be used for any purpose other than market research.

7. Market researchers shall ensure that projects and activities are designed, carried out, reported and documented accurately, transparently and objectively.

8. Market researchers shall conform to the accepted principles of fair competition.

The most important issues to consider when doing research online are fair collection, consent when sharing information and security.

Research companies must post clear and prominent privacy policies. Researchers must disclose information about identification and tracking technologies and other software in a timely and open manner with data subjects. This communication must provide details on the types of data if any, that are being collected and stored and how the researcher uses and shares the data subject's information.

Personal information about the respondent must not be used for non-research purposes or shared with third parties without the respondent's consent. Respondents must be able to easily uninstall research software without prejudice or harm to them or their computer systems.

Panel members should receive clear, periodic notification that they are actively recorded as participants, so as to ensure that their participation is voluntary. Active panel members are usually defined as a panel member who has participated in at least one survey if requested, and has updated his/her profile data or has registered to join the access panel, within a specified and recent period.

Researchers must take steps to protect information collected from respondents. Researchers must establish safeguards that minimise the risk of data security breaches and privacy threats to the data subject and make all reasonable efforts to ensure that their software and data collection methods are safe, secure and do not cause undue privacy or data security risks.

For more details, go to the Online Research Guidelines.

Researchers knowingly calling or sending text messages to a mobile phone for the purpose of conducting a survey shall observe the principles of respect and disclosure that are practised in fixed-line telephone research in line with the ICC/ESOMAR Code. These include identification of the calling party, the identity of the organisation that will receive the data if the company carrying out the call is only providing data collection and not analysis, notification as to the purpose of the call/survey, the voluntary nature of participation, the guarantee of confidentiality and consideration of local expectations about appropriate times for telephone calls.

In addition, researchers must consult whether individuals have a reasonable expectation that they will receive a contact for research. If calling they must remain mindful of concerns about privacy and intrusion and politely terminate the call when it becomes apparent that the recipient is not in a position or does not wish to take the call, is not competent, or is a child (unless the researcher receives consent from an appropriate adult to proceed with the call).

Researchers must also bear in mind that calls to mobiles can involve a charge to the caller and the recipient and either design the study so that the respondent incurs no cost, and if this is not possible, be prepared to compensate respondents for their cost.

For more details, go to the Guideline on Research via Mobile Phone.

To avoid disputes, ESOMAR strongly recommends that there is a clear written contract or terms of business agreed by the client and the research provider and this should include terms relating to cancellation.

For more details on issues to cover in the contract go to the ESOMAR Guideline on the Mutual rights and responsibilities.

The age definition of a child varies from country to country. For the purposes of the ICC/ESOMAR International Code, a "child" is defined as under the age of 14 years and a "young person" is defined as aged between 14 and 17 years where there is no specific national definition incorporated in a national code of practice or in national legislation.

The permission of an adult responsible for the child must be obtained before interviewing children aged under 14 years.

For more detail go to the ESOMAR Guideline on Interviewing Children and Young People.

Researchers should take all reasonable steps to ensure that respondents are not harmed or adversely affected as a result of their participation in a product test. The researcher and the client should take into account the question of liability to the public in case of a complaint about of using the product and ensure that there is adequate and effective international liability insurance in place. This is particularly important if the product is unbranded, since the research agency may well find itself legally liable as the distributor of the product. While the client bears the main responsibility, the researcher also carries responsibility, for instance, for proper storage of the product or its delivery to respondents. The rules for legally controlled products like tobacco, alcohol and pharmaceuticals are much more restrictive and need to be checked at the national level.

Additionally, if recruiting children or young people, researchers must ensure that they have suitable permission .

For more details go to the ESOMAR Guideline on the Mutual rights and responsibilities of researchers and clients and the ESOMAR Guideline on Interviewing Children and Young People.

The ICC/ESOMAR Code contains the key principles which all members agree to uphold. It provides a frame-work for self-regulation as well as demonstrates practitioners' recognition of their ethical and professional responsibilities in carrying out market research. The Code is designed:

• To set out the ethical rules which market researchers follow;
• To enhance the public's confidence in market research by emphasising the rights and safeguards to which they are entitled under this Code;
• To emphasise the need for a special responsibility when seeking the opinions of children and young people;
• To safeguard freedom for market researchers to seek, receive and impart information (as embodied in article 19 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights);
• To minimise the risk of governmental and/or intergovernmental legislation inadvertently damaging the interests of legitimate social, opinion and market research.

Researchers must be transparent in their dealings with respondents and never allow personal data they collect in a market research project to be used for any purpose other than research. There are commercial activities that may appear to be similar to market research. Howevert heir aim is to use the collected data to target marketing or sales approaches directly at the respondent.

The ESOMAR Guide on Distinguishing Market Research from other Data Ccollection Activities provides guidance on how differentiate commercial and market research actions.

For example, if the intention in conducting a survey is to pass on identifiable data to the client to be used for marketing purposes, it must not be misrepresented to respondents as market research. In this case it must follow the legal framework established for commercial activities such as direct marketing.
For more details go to the Consolidated ICC Code of Advertising and Marketing Communication Practice.

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