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Research Privacy Policy

Sub title
Market and Social Research

SEC Newgate UK - Research Privacy Policy

Introduction 

This Privacy Policy for SEC Newgate UK’s market and social research activities lets you know what personal information of yours we hold, what we do with it, who we will disclose it to and how you can access the personal information we hold about you. You can also find out here how to change inaccurate personal information and how to opt out of receiving communications from us. SEC Newgate UK respects and upholds your rights in adherence to the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.  For more information about these regulations, click here. 

 

What are your rights? 

Under UK GDPR, you have rights that you can exercise involving any personal information SEC Newgate UK holds on you such as: 

 

  • Access to the personal information we hold about you 

  • The correction of your personal information when incorrect, out of date or incomplete 

  • The objection, restriction or erasure of processing of your personal information 

  • Whenever you have given us your consent to use your personal information you have the right to change your mind at any time and withdraw your consent 

  • Request the transfer of your personal information to another party 

 

What personal information about you does SEC Newgate UK collect and hold? 

The information SEC Newgate UK collects and holds for the purposes of undertaking market and social research include your answers to our research questions and discussions. 

 

This may include: 

  • Your name 

  • Age 

  • Occupation 

  • Life stage 

  • Makeup of your household 

  • Whether you own or rent your home 

  • Opinion and feedback in relation to a number of ideas, products, proposals or issues.  

 

When providing personal information you have the option of remaining anonymous or use a pseudonym by which you can be identified. However, in certain circumstances, such as where we receive your contact details from a third party or where the research data itself may potentially allow for identification, this may not be practicable.  Depending on the nature of the research we conduct, we may also collect sensitive information from you, including your political opinion, income level and cultural background. Sensitive information will only be collected with your prior consent and only if it is directly related to, or reasonably necessary for, the research we conduct.  

 

At any point in undertaking research with us, you can choose not to answer any of our questions or to give us any details related to your personal and/or sensitive information. 

 

How does SEC Newgate UK collect and hold your personal information? 

SEC Newgate UK will generally collect your personal information directly from you, or from one of our accredited fieldwork companies, in the course of you participating in our qualitative and/or quantitative research.  

 

However, we may also from time to time collect personal information about you from third parties, such as an organisation or company of which you’re a customer, member or employee. We may also collect personal information from other organisations or companies who may be working with or related to the organisation or company of which you’re a customer, member or employee. If so, we will inform you as soon as practicable of this collection and the circumstances of this collection. This will often be at the invitation to participate in the research. 

 

What are the purposes for which SEC Newgate UK uses, handles and discloses your personal information? 

We will only use your personal information for the purpose of conducting our research and in accordance with this Privacy Policy. We do not disclose your personal information to anyone except our accredited fieldwork companies and only for the purposes of confirming your participation in our research. We will not use or disclose your personally identifiable information for the purpose of advertising, promotions or direct marketing activities. 

 

If you declined to participate in our research, we may use your personal information to re-contact you for a research purpose if we have valid reasons to believe a genuine research concern warrants such re-contact. If you have participated in our research, we will only re-contact you if you were informed of this or we have valid reasons to believe a genuine research concern warrants such re-contact. 

 

Results and findings from our research are only reported at an anonymous, non-identifiable level, unless the participating individual has provided express, written consent to be identified within the research findings and reports. 

 

Outside of participation within our research, we may also collect, hold and use your personal information in order to respond to your enquiries. 

 

We do not disclose your personal information, except to our own contractors for internal purposes and subject to this privacy policy, or if you consent, or if required by law. 

 

Who will SEC Newgate UK disclose your personal information to? 

SEC Newgate UK will not disclose any personally identifiable research information we collect from you unless we have your express prior consent and will only report the information you provide in an aggregate form that will not personally identify you. We will not disclose any personal information or personally identifiable research information to a third party for a purpose other than conducting our research unless we have your express prior consent or are required to do so by law. In most cases this will be to one of our accredited fieldwork companies. 

 

In the course of conducting our research we may rely on third party service providers to host or store the data we collect who are located overseas. In most cases, this survey data and research information will not be personally identifiable. We will also take reasonable steps to ensure any service providers (and their employees and contractors) comply with UK GDPR and this Privacy Policy and/or are subject to similar privacy laws and you have the ability to enforce those rights. 

 

Where research discussions are observed by clients, personal information in the form of audio-visual recordings may be disclosed via a secure, encrypted link for the exclusive purpose of observation by nominated members of the client team who have confirmed that they will only view the recording for observational purposes pertaining to the project at hand.  

 

Open access to and correction of your personal information 

You have the right to request access to any personal information we hold about you. You can request this information by contacting our Head of Research at the details listed below. Where we hold information that you are entitled to access, we will respond to your request in a reasonable time (within two business days) and endeavour to provide you with a suitable range of choices as to how access is provided (e.g., emailing or mailing it to you). 

 

If at any time you believe that personal information we hold about you is incorrect, incomplete or inaccurate, then you may request amendment of it and we will either amend the information or make a record of your comment, as we think appropriate. 

 

Questions and Complaints 

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or believe that we have at any time failed to keep one of our commitments to you to handle your personal information in the manner required, then we ask that you contact us immediately using the following contact details: 

 

Leyla Hart-Svensson 
Managing Director, Research 

 

We will respond and advise whether we agree with your complaint or not. If we do not agree, we will provide reasons. If we do agree, we will advise what (if any) action we consider it appropriate to take in response. If you are still not satisfied after having contacted us and given us a reasonable time to respond, then we suggest that you contact the Information Comissioner’s Office: 

Phone: 0303 123 1113  

 

Retention and Destruction of Personal Information 

All research data, including any personal information provided as part of the research activities, is held in encrypted form on SEC Newgate’s secure servers located in the United Kingdom for the duration of the research project. 

 

SEC Newgate UK will destroy or de-identify your personal information as soon as practicable once it is no longer needed for the purpose for our research purposes. However, we may in certain circumstances be required by law to retain your personal information after our research has been completed. In this case your personal information will continue to be protected in accordance with this Policy. If we destroy personal information we will do so by taking reasonable steps and using up-to-date techniques and processes. 

 

Security of Information 

SEC Newgate UK will take reasonable steps to protect your personally identifiable information as you transmit your information from your computer to our website and to protect such information from loss, misuse, and unauthorised access, use, modification, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. 

However, you should keep in mind that the transmission of information over the Internet is not completely secure or error-free. In particular, email sent to or from this website may not be secure, and you should therefore take special care in deciding what information you send to us via e-mail. 

 

Miscellaneous 

In this policy “personal information” has the same meaning as under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.