Kantar Worldpanel Privacy Policy
Version 2.0
24/05/2018
1. ESSENTIAL INFORMATION ON THE TREATMENT OF PERSONAL DATA OF PANELLISTS
The data controller is TNS Ireland Limited, trading as Kantar Worldpanel (“Kantar Worldpanel”). Our registered address is TNS Ireland Limited, 5/6 Ely Place, Dublin 2 (company number 314485). Kantar Worldpanel, formerly known as TNS Worldpanel, is part of the Kantar Group.
Kantar Worldpanel run panels (the “panel”) which are representative groups of people who complete a specific study over a period of time, rather than a one-off study. The participants in these panels are referred to as panel members or panellists (the "Panellists").
Panellists' data is collected by Kantar Worldpanel when the household registers for and participates in panels and / or one or more studies. This data is used in research studies and is collected using a range of methods including, but not limited to: surveys, barcode scanners, capturing images of receipts, online and paper registration forms and questionnaires, cookies, and data collected from third parties.
The purposes pursued by these data processing operations are to carry out studies and analyses and to monitor the Panellists' lifestyle and consumption habits, their behaviour and opinions. These studies, analyses and follow-ups enable Kantar Worldpanel clients to refine their knowledge of existing and prospective customers and improve their products, services or marketing.
Kantar Worldpanel attaches particular importance to the protection of personal data and the privacy of its panellists. Kantar Worldpanel defines personal data as any information related to a person that can be used to directly or indirectly identify the individual.
This Privacy Policy (the "Privacy Policy") explains to Panellists how Kantar Worldpanel uses and protects their personal data.
The Privacy Policy applies to personal data transmitted to Kantar Worldpanel by Panellists. By registering and accepting these terms, you confirm that you have read the terms of this Privacy Policy. Kantar Worldpanel recommends that Panellists carefully read this Privacy Policy.
2. LAWFUL COLLECTION AND USE OF DATA
Kantar Worldpanel collects information in several ways from different parts of our site, our mobile application and other Panellist activities such as barcode scanners, apps and surveys. Examples of these actives are explained below and include:
Registration/Termination: some personal data is gathered when you register:
• for contact: such as names, email address, postal address, telephone number
• in order to assess in particular eligibility for the various panels: age (including date of birth), gender, occupation and information on the composition of the household (surnames and given names of the persons making up the household, dates of birth, gender, working status
• information about their lifestyle and buying and consuming behaviour.
• a very short questionnaire in order to understand the reasons why the panel member wishes to terminate its membership.
The data is provided to Kantar Worldpanel by the Panellist on a voluntary basis, and after agreement of all other adult and legally responsible household members on a voluntary basis. These are necessary for the validation of their registration and for the assessment of eligibility for the various consumer panels. All responses to the registration form are mandatory in order to participate in one of the panels and/or one of the studies.
Panel Studies or Research Activities: personal data may also be collected from you when you participate in Kantar Worldpanel consumer panel or in a research study:
Within the framework of Kantar Worldpanel consumer panels and/or studies, the Panellist is asked to answer questionnaires, and possibly, to use tools to scan purchases in order to transmit to Kantar Worldpanel information on their consumption, behaviour and/or consumer opinion.
What Kantar Worldpanel do with your data:
While participating in the panel, Kantar Worldpanel use the information that you provide for the following tasks:
• Contact you via email, through telephone calls, mobile notifications or texts or any other proposed communication options
• To ensure that you understand the task and advise on any issues you are experiencing
• To remind you to participate in the study or a specific part of it. As our studies measure the populations behaviour over time it is important that you consistently complete the research
• Inform you of updates to our panel services, new features and details relevant to you through panel communications
• your eligibility for future surveys and other panel studies
• Send you our newsletter
• Help you when you contact our Panel Communications team
• Allow us to reward you with (and notify you have been rewarded) the promised incentives
• Protect Kantar Worldpanel from fraudulent behaviour
• Prevent multiple or duplicate entries in studies by the same individuals
• Update, enrich and clean our panel members’ data to improve our usage of data, allowing us to better appreciate your eligibility for surveys and studies.
• To carry out studies and analyses and to monitor the Panellists' lifestyle and consumption habits, their behaviour and their consumer opinions.
• Share your disaggregated data with third party partners’ or clients’
• Third party partners’ or clients’ share your disaggregated data with us
We have set out below more detailed information about how we use your personal data. We are also required by law to explain the legal basis for processing your personal data. These legal bases are listed below and could be different for each use case:
• we have your consent for the use of your personal data
• we need to use your personal data in order to perform a contract with you
• we need to process your data to comply with a legal obligation
• we need to process your data in order to protect your vital interests or someone else
• the processing is necessary to perform a task in the public interest, or
• the use of your personal data is necessary for our (or our clients’) legitimate interests (in which case we will explain what those interests are).
We will never misrepresent ourselves or what we are doing. If you receive an email that concerns you, purporting to be from us, please let us know as shown below in ‘How to Contact Us’.
| Case | Purpose | Data collected/processed |
|---|---|---|
| Market Research | To understand your views about certain products and services or to understand your behaviour in different situations | Identifier, contact details, email address, voice, image, opinion. |
| Scientific Research for academics, public health organisations or Research Council institutes | Including but not limited to health economics and outcomes research, real world research (RWR). | Identifier, contact details, email address, health data, e.g. disease, health status, diagnose, treatment pattern, unmet needs |
| Scientific Research for commercial companies and charitable research organisations | Including but not limited to health economics and outcomes research, real world research (RWR). | Identifier, contact details, email address, health data, e.g. disease, health status, diagnose, treatment pattern, unmet needs |
| Public Disclosure | To share or disclosed pursuant to judicial or other government subpoenas, warrants, orders or pursuant to similar and other legal or regulatory requirements, we will provide such information to the appropriate authorities. | Identifier, name, contact details, email address, incentive received. |
| Fraud Protection | Protection of our business interests against fraudulent behaviour or behaviour not in line with our Terms and Conditions | IP address, browser specifications, device specifications, postal addresses, email addresses, phone number, identification numbers |
| Panel ID for Disaggregated data | When you participate in our studies, we typically use a fixed panel member ID. When disaggregated data is shared with a client we may create a temporary ID for this 3rd party so that they do not see your panel member ID. This allows clients to match profile answers to behaviours without having access to your panel member ID |
Temporary unique client project specific identifier |
| Survey Participation Uniqueness | Prevention of multiple entries in surveys by the same individuals in line with our Terms and Conditions | IP address, browser specifications, device specifications |
| Tracking of the Answers of Recurring Respondents (special research design projects) | When you participate in our surveys, we typically use a temporary ID which makes your answers in the survey anonymous to our clients. However, some of our clients have the specific research design need to understand how your opinion has evolved over a period of time. For this specific project type that we call "tracking" projects we will use persistent IDs and we will make this clear at the beginning of each of these surveys. Your survey responses will be considered as personal data and you will have the right to access them. Such projects will contain a notice on the very first page of the survey, so that you can identify them and decide whether or not to take part. | Persistent unique project-specific identifier |
| Data Matching and Enrichment | We enrich the data we hold on file about you by matching your personal data with third parties. First, we work with select 3rd parties and may utilise matching services (i.e. third parties who are specialized in data management) to acquire additional information about you from public and private data sources (such as Data segmentation specialists and content subscription services with whom you have an account) or to use your personal data as an aid to develop additional or new types of anonymous data sets (i.e. we compile your aggregate data with data from other consumers to create a new lifestyle segment). Second, the matching service (our partner) holds the personal data we share for a short time, uses it to assemble the additional information, and then return the combined information to us. Partners are contractually bound to delete the data we share with them or and are not authorised to use it in any way other than for this specific purpose. | Persistent unique identifier, contact details, email address, social login, cookie, mobile device ID, official identification number (i.e. ME number) |
| Advertising Targeting and Media Buying Research | We use your personal data to help our clients and vendors enrich their data by using lookalike modelling techniques. Thanks to your participation in our surveys and your profile data, we can help our clients to improve their advertising targeting, and to create better online advertising models, through lookalike modelling or similar research methodologies. We will use your personal data we collect about you through profile building, participation in research surveys or data matching to match with third-parties and platforms (our partners). We include contractual safeguards to ensure that you will not automatically be targeted for commercial purposes, as a result of your data being used to help create a lookalike audience, and that our partners cannot use your data for any other purpose. |
Persistent unique identifier, contact details, email address, social login, cookie, IP address, mobile device ID, official identification number (i.e. ME number) |
Our third-party partners are all contractually bound to keep any information they collect and disclose to us, or that we collect and disclose to them, confidential and must protect it with security standards and practices that are equivalent to our own and law-abiding.
Where We Store Your Personal Data
For personal data which is subject to the GDPR and transferred to a country or territory outside the European Economic Area (EEA), we shall put adequate safeguards in place to ensure the transfer is made by a lawful method for the purposes of EU data protection law and secure. For data which is not subject to the GDPR, Kantar Worldpanel shall strictly follow any other applicable data protection laws.
Kantar Worldpanel’s data storage servers are located in Europe and in the United States of America (USA) and are managed by third party service providers in the cloud. Data may be stored or accessible for data processing in India by technology staff.
We take appropriate technological and organisational measures to protect your personal data, both during transmission and once we receive it. Our security procedures are consistent with generally accepted standards used to protect personal data.
All our employees are contractually obliged to follow our policies and procedures regarding confidentiality, security and privacy.
Your account information and personal data are password-protected or accessed through an agreed authentication so that you and only you have access to your information. In order to keep your personal data safe, we recommend that you do not divulge your password or details of authentication to anyone. Kantar Worldpanel will never ask you for your password in an unsolicited phone call or in an unsolicited email. Also, please remember to sign out of your account where possible and close your browser window when you have finished visiting our site. This is to ensure that others cannot access your personal data and correspondence if you share a computer with someone else or are using a computer in a public place. Please change your password regularly.
3. SENSITIVE DATA COLLECTED BY KANTAR WORLDPANEL
Some of the data collected can qualify as ‘sensitive’ data. For reference: ‘sensitive’ data in general is considered to be data consisting of racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person's sex life or sexual orientation.
Occasionally, we may ask about such sensitive data in questionnaires, where answering these is subject to your consent.
Failure to respond to these questionnaires will not affect your panel membership. We will never insist on panellists providing sensitive data that is not part of our standard datasets, although a survey on for example a medical condition would require that you answer whether you have this condition.
Due to the nature of the panel task, we expect panellists to declare all relevant purchasing, some of which could be classified as ‘sensitive’ (for example, purchasing of paracetamol may indicate you have a headache). We will never identify purchasers of ‘sensitive’ products at an individual level but may produce summarised reports based on this purchasing.
Collection & transfer of Panellist's data upon termination of membership in one of the panels and / or one of the studies
Upon receipt of a request to leave a panel, Kantar Worldpanel may ask the Panellist to answer a very short questionnaire to understand the reasons why the panellist wishes to terminate their membership. Answering is optional, but allows Kantar Worldpanel to improve the management of its consumer panels and studies for future members.
Kantar Worldpanel will store personal data for a reasonable period of time after termination of membership to:
• Ensure the panellist can redeem outstanding reward points (within the terms agreed to within the reward points programme)
• To close the panellist’s reward points account
• To ensure the panellist is not re-invited within 2 years
4. SECURITY OF PANELLIST DATA
Whenever Kantar Worldpanel handles personal data as described above, regardless of where this occurs, Kantar Worldpanel takes steps to ensure that your information is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy. Unfortunately, no data transmission can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal data, Kantar Worldpanel cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us or from our online products or services, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your transmission, we will take reasonable steps to ensure our systems are secure.
Ultimately, you are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of your passwords and/or any account information. Please be careful and responsible whenever you're online.
We adhere to standards and industry requirements, including the MRS (Market Research Society).
5. ACCURACY OF DATA
We take reasonable steps to keep personal data in our possession or control accurate, complete and current, based on the most recent information made available to us by you and/or by our clients.
We rely on you to help us keep your personal data accurate, complete and current by answering our questions honestly. You are responsible for ensuring that you notify us of any changes to your personal data.
To advise of any changes, please visit "Contact Us" section of the panellist website or see the “How to Contact us” section below.
6. CHILDRENS DATA
Kantar Worldpanel recognizes the need to provide further privacy protections with respect to personal data collected from children. We never knowingly invite children under the legal age set by the authorities in the country in which you reside to be the main household shopper within our panel. However, we may ask main shoppers who have children to participate in tasks which they are rewarded for. If it is necessary and appropriate to a particular project to directly involve children under the legal age, we take measures to ensure we have been given permission by their parent or legal guardian. Kantar Worldpanel will provide parents and guardians information about the survey topic, about any personal or sensitive information which may be collected from the children, the way this data will be used and whether and with whom Kantar Worldpanel may share such information on a study by study basis.
Consent will be obtained through email or webpage. We will explain what information we are collecting, how we plan to use it, how the parent can provide consent, and how the parent can revoke consent. If no consent is received, the child will not be able to participate in the task. While the child is taking part in the panel activities, it is the responsibility of the parent or guardian to supervise them.
7. THE RIGHTS OF THE PANELLIST
To request access to personal data that we hold about you, you should submit your request in writing to the e-mail address or postal address shown below in “How to Contact Us”.
You have the following rights in relation to your personal data:
• Right to change your mind and to withdraw your consent
• Right to access your personal data
• Right to rectify your personal data
• Right to erase your personal data from our systems, unless we have legitimate interest reasons for continuing to process the information
• Right to port your personal data (portability right)
• Right to restrict processing of your personal data
• Right to object to the processing of your personal data
We shall also notify third parties to whom we have transferred your personal data of any changes that we make on your request. Note that while Kantar Worldpanel communicates to these third parties, Kantar Worldpanel is not responsible for the actions taken by these third parties to answer your request. You may be able to access your personal data held by these third parties and correct, amend or delete it where it is inaccurate.
The Panellist may exercise the rights defined above by contacting Kantar Worldpanel, via the "Contact Us" section of the website, or the details in the “How to Contact Us “section below.
8. PERIOD OF RETENTION
Kantar Worldpanel studies observe long-term consumer behaviour requiring a ten-year history of panellists’ purchasing and demographics. Panellists’ purchasing and demographic data is therefore kept for a minimum period of ten years from the date a panellist terminates their panel membership. However, data that is unnecessary for our research, in particular contact details and all personally identifiable data (for example names, phone numbers and emails), will be deleted five years from the date of termination on a monthly basis. This data is stored for this pre-defined length of time to ensure we do not re-invite panellists for a reasonable length of time after termination and this data will not be passed on to any third parties.
9. NOTIFICATION OF CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY
We reserve the right to change, add to, or remove portions from this Privacy Policy at any time. You should read this page regularly to ensure you are updated as to any changes. However, if any material change is made to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you of that change. Non-material changes to this Privacy Policy will be announced through the site only. Your continued membership of the panel and services after such changes conclusively demonstrates your consent to any changes.
We will always display the most up-to-date policy on our website.
We keep our Privacy Policy under regular review. This Privacy Policy was last updated on 24 May 2018
10. COMPLAINTS OR QUERIES
Kantar Worldpanel tries to meet the highest standards when collecting and using personal information. We encourage people to bring it to our attention if they think that our collection or use of information is unfair, misleading or inappropriate. We would also welcome any suggestions for improving our procedures.
If you want to make a complaint about the way we have processed your personal information, you can contact the Data Protection Commission - https://www.dataprotection.ie/docs/complaints/1592.htm.
11. HOW TO CONTACT US
If you have any questions regarding our management of your personal data if you want to request information about our privacy policy, you can email us at shopandscanireland@kantarworldpanel.com or write to:
Ravinder Roopra
Data Protection Officer
Panel Communications
Kantar Worldpanel,
5/6 Ely Place,
Dublin 2.