POLICIES AND COMPLIANCES
Is there a privacy policy in place? If so, what does it state? Is the panel compliant with all regional, national and local laws with respect to privacy, data protection and children e.g. EU Safe Harbour, and COPPA in the US? What other research industry standards do you comply with e.g. ICC/ESOMAR International Code on Market and Social Research, CASRO guidelines etc.?
Data protection and privacy are serious issues for ODC Services. We treat our panelists data strictly confidentially and it will in no case be given to any third parties including our clients.
Studies are always analyzed anonymously. Of course the privacy policy is clearly visible on our panel-community website. ODC Services complies with local laws for data protection as well as the main research standards and guidelines (ICC/ESOMAR, BVM).
What data protection/security measures do you have in place?
In an ever-growing internet-driven world, it is of the utmost importance to ensure the safe transfer of data by implementing an SSL server.
Under no circumstances do we pass on personal data to third parties, without the permission of the person involved. All information ascertained is aggregated purely for scientific and market research purposes. The final data analysis is made anonymously. The potential panelist is required to double-opt-in, thus making it impossible for imposters to interfere with other people's data. When a panelist unsubscribes, the data really is deleted to prevent further use. For surveys, unique IDs are sent to each panelist, preventing a repeated participance on the same survey. Our panelist's data is stored on a separate server which is exclusively set up for this purpose. High security measures are taken, be it the firewall protection or the demilitarized zone (DMZ) which prevents trespassing of non-authorized staff. Data back-ups are made on a daily basis.
Do you apply a quality management system? Please describe it.
We provide online field research services with a high claim to quality, so it is especially important to us to practice wide-ranging, holistic quality management.
We are convinced that ultimately, the only way to carry out high-quality, reliable online market research is to take into account all quality aspects from panel quality, project quality and service quality. After all, even if a panel meets the highest quality standards in terms of recruitment and maintenance, the data acquired using this panel will only be significant to a limited extent if errors are made in the design and programming of questionnaires or the target group screening method. Even if a market researcher designs a high-quality questionnaire, with a 'bad' panel or a lack of technological possibilities he or she will get unreliable feedback on the questions.
Our holistic quality management system is reflected in entire workflows and processes. It is an internally applied quality control and not one laid down by a particular governing body.
Do you conduct online surveys with children and young people? If so, please describe the process for obtaining permission.
We do not have under 14s in our panel, in accordance with the guidelines laid down by European law and ESOMARs instructions on this topic.
In such cases, we invite those panelists (from whom we know have offspring in the required age group) to let their children answer the questions.
