PRIVACY STATEMENT
Connecting Health and Technology (CHAT) Members have been invited to take part in a major national research effort. Members may complete surveys to provide feedback and opinions on a range of health, technology, lifestyle, and other questions, and may contribute other types of data along with other Study Members. Active Study Members receive certain benefits from Ipsos in exchange for participating in surveys.
OUR PRIVACY COMMITMENTS
Ipsos respects the privacy of every Study Member. This Privacy Statement outlines the information Ipsos will collect and how we will use that information. This Statement will also tell you how you can verify the accuracy of your Personal Information (defined below) submitted to Ipsos and how you can request that we delete or update your Personal Information.
We've developed our privacy policy from industry guidelines and standards, and local, national, and international laws and requirements. All privacy practices and methods described in this policy apply only insofar as permitted by the applicable standards, laws and requirements.
Thanks again for placing your trust in Ipsos.
INFORMATION COLLECTED AND HOW WE USE IT
WHAT WE COLLECT:
A) PERSONAL AND DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION
During the CHAT recruitment process, Ipsos collects personal information, which is information that could personally identify you, such as your name, address, email address and the names and ages of members of your household (such personally identifiable information being referred to as “Personal Information”); personal Information excludes Demographic Information, which is defined below. In addition, Ipsos frequently asks Study Members for characteristics that will not generally by themselves personally identify you (such as technology attitudes or media exposure), attributes, and demographic information (such as age, income, gender) (collectively, “Demographic Information”) via online surveys.
You are in control of the Personal Information and Demographic Information that you provide to Ipsos. We rely on you to provide updates to your Personal Information and Demographic Information. You can:
- Ask for a copy of your Personal Information or Demographic Information.
- Ask for your Personal Information or Demographic Information to be corrected or updated.
- Ask us to remove your Personal Information or Demographic Information from your records.
- To do this, please contact us using the links provided later in this statement. Ipsos will use reasonable efforts to provide the requested information to you.
B) OPERATING INFORMATION
Ipsos may, in the course of interacting with Study Members, gather other types of information from Study Members (“Operating Information”). For example, as a CHAT Member, you will receive six surveys from Ipsos. These surveys will ask questions about your interests, beliefs, and attitudes. We will receive your responses to these surveys. If we offer programs (such as rewards programs) in which you explicitly agree to participate, then Ipsos will receive information from those programs (such as information concerning your receipt of rewards).
C) LOG FILES
As is true of most Web sites, for Study Members we gather certain information automatically and store it in log files. This information includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and clickstream data.
We use this information, which does not identify individual users, to analyze trends, to administer the site, to track users’ movements around the site, and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole.
We do not link this automatically-collected data to Personal Information.
D) COOKIES
A cookie is a small text file that is stored on a user’s computer for record-keeping purposes. We use persistent cookies on the Ipsos Study Member site. Persistent cookies are used when you register as a Study Member or log into our site, and are used to store information such as your email address and password. We use these cookies to recognize Study Members when they participate in surveys and to record information about the survey, such as when the survey is completed and how much of the survey has been completed. A persistent cookie remains on your hard drive for an extended period of time. You can remove persistent cookies by following directions provided in your Internet browser’s “help” file. If you reject cookies, you may still use our site, but your ability to use some areas of our site, such as contests or surveys, will be limited.
In addition, we use cookies to measure certain advertisements that are displayed on your computer. We may invite you to participate in surveys that ask whether you recalled seeing certain advertisements online. By detecting these cookies, we may also track certain information regarding your activity on our or a third party’s website, which we use to conduct research on Study Members’ demographics, interests, and behavior. We do not link the information we store in cookies to any Personal Information you submit while on our site. We do not have access to, or control over cookies that may exist on your hard drive that were placed by third parties., We cannot control how they may be used by third parties or otherwise have any control over the type of content that may be included with any tags incorporated in those cookies.
E) BROWSER DO NOT TRACK SETTINGS
You browser offers a Do-Not-Track (DNT) privacy setting. Enabling it may result in your browsing history not being used by some advertising networks to serve targeted ads to you. The cookies that we use to measure advertising effectiveness may tell us which websites you visited where certain ads were displayed. Enabling or disabling the DNT setting in your browser has no impact on our use of cookies that measure exposure to ads or other online content on third party websites. For more information about DNT privacy settings, visit www.allaboutdnt.com.
HOW WE USE YOUR INFORMATION:
A) PERSONAL AND DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION
An email address will be necessary for us to communicate with you and your household members, and to assist you with questions that you may have about the CHAT procedures. It may also be used for study recruitment, contest entry processing or delivery of incentives to CHAT Members.
Personal Information concerning location or address is also used to ensure that our study accurately represents the country’s population as a whole. Study Members are asked for Demographic Information in order to pre-qualify members or households for surveys that target specific groups. We also use this information to ensure that our study accurately represents the country's population as a whole.
Ipsos uses Personal Information and Demographic Information solely in the conduct of its research business. Personal Information or Demographic Information may be combined with information collected about you by Ipsos or third parties with your express permission, with information that is collected about you from public records, or with information that Ipsos may acquire from third parties that have a legal right to provide such information to Ipsos.
If you provide us with your mobile phone number, Ipsos and/or its agents may contact you periodically using an automatic telephone dialing system, interactive voice response technology or SMS text message for purposes related to your participation in CHAT. For example, we may use interactive voice response technology and SMS text messages to notify or remind panel members when a survey is available for completion. You may revoke your consent to be contacted by an automatic telephone dialing system or interactive voice response technology on your mobile phone by contacting Ipsos. See the Complaints section below. If you no longer want to receive SMS text messages from us or our agents, please reply to our or their SMS text messages by writing STOP.
B) OPERATING INFORMATION
Ipsos uses Operating Information solely in the conduct of its research business. As is the case with Personal Information and Demographic Information, Operating Information may be combined with information collected about you by third parties with your express permission, with information that is collected about you from public records, or with information that Ipsos may acquire from third parties that have a legal right to provide such information to Ipsos.
DATA SHARING AND TRANSFER
A) HOW WE MAY SHARE INFORMATION:
Except as detailed in this section of the Privacy Statement, Personal Information regarding Study Members will never be shared with any third parties without your express permission. We reserve the right, however, to disclose your Personal Information as required by law and when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights and/or comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on Ipsos or its employees or agents, except in cases that are covered by a National Institutes of Health-granted Certificate of Confidentiality.
In addition, occasionally Ipsos will share contact information, such as name and mailing address, with third parties with whom we have partnered to provide specific services to Ipsos, or services on behalf of Ipsos, specifically for the purposes of study recruitment, study communications, contest entry processing or delivery of incentives to CHAT Members. These partners have agreed not to share or resell this data and they are contractually obligated not to use any Personal Information except for the purpose of providing these services, unless you explicitly enter into a relationship with them that would directly allow them to do so.
Ipsos collects and shares Demographic Information and Operating Information with its research clients (“Clients”) in an anonymous form. We may share this information with our Clients on an anonymous individual basis to provide your individual Demographic Information and Operating Information (without specifically identifying you), and may provide this information on an aggregate basis with respect to a group of our Study Members to describe group demographics or interest profiles (again, without specifically identifying any Study Member). As discussed above under the heading “Cookies,” certain web pages that you view may be tracked by third parties using advanced cookies, and this tracking data may be provided by such third parties to our Clients, and combined by our Clients with your Demographic Information and Operating Information for research purposes.
Our research Clients will never receive Personal Information of Study Members, nor will they be able to identify Study Members, without your express permission.
Ipsos is an expanding business, and like other companies, we sometimes acquire or divest business units or Ipsos may itself be acquired. As part of such transfers or mergers, we may convey the business assets of the particular business unit, or the company as a whole, including Personal Information, Demographic Information, or Operating Information of Study Members. In that eventuality, you would be notified via email.
B) DATA TRANSFERS:
Your Personal Information, Demographic Information, and Operating Information will generally be stored in our secure Ipsos databases. For easier processing of email communications, contests, sweepstakes, or for study recruitment or study communications, however, your Personal Information, Demographic Information, or Operating Information may be sent to or accessed by Ipsos service providers and contractors who are obligated to keep such information confidential in countries outside the United States or the European Union. Ipsos data protection standards and those of its service providers and contractors are the same, regardless of where your information is stored.
Ipsos and other Ipsos companies comply with the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor Framework and the U.S.-Swiss Safe Harbor Framework as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of personal information from European Union member countries and Switzerland. Ipsos has certified that it adheres to the Safe Harbor Privacy Principles (“Principles”) of notice, choice, onward transfer, security, data integrity, access, and enforcement. To learn more about the Safe Harbor program, and to view Ipsos’s certification, please visit http://www.export.gov/safeharbor/.
CHILDREN’S PRIVACY
Ipsos believes that it is especially important to protect children’s privacy online and encourages parents and guardians to spend time online with their children to participate and monitor their Internet activity.
Ipsos complies with all applicable national and international children’s privacy regulations. We do not permit children who are under 15 years of age to become CHAT Members. We do not collect any Personal Information from children under 15 years of age. As part of the registration process for new Study Members, we collect both the Study Member’s name and contact information to ensure correct incentive delivery. We take reasonable steps to ensure that we have obtained parental consent for 15 to 17 year olds to participate in this Study. The information collected in response to such surveys is not combined with identifying information about the child. In every case such survey does not collect Personal Information about the child. We comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998.
If a Study Member has provided us with Personal Information about a child in the Study Member’s household who is under the age of 15, a parent or guardian of that child may contact us at the email address or mailing address listed at the bottom of this Privacy Statement if he or she would like this information deleted from our records. We will use reasonable efforts to delete the child’s information from our databases.
If you would like to contact us about your or your child’s Personal Information, or to find out how you can have your child’s Personal Information removed from our database, please see the “Access To Your Information and Complaints” section later in this document.
DATA SECURITY AND RESPONSIBILITY
Ipsos is committed to keeping the data you provide us secure and will take reasonable precautions to protect your Personal Information from loss, misuse, or alteration. Vendors, contractors, or partners of Ipsos who have access to your Personal Information in connection with providing services for Ipsos are contractually required to keep the information confidential and are not permitted to use this information for any other purpose than to carry out the services they are performing for Ipsos.
Ipsos also safeguards Personal Information, Demographic Information, and Operating Information from unauthorized access. Most Operating Information is maintained in databases that are separate from those containing Personal Information and Demographic Information. Only authorized Ipsos employees or agents carrying out permitted business functions are allowed to access these databases. In addition, each employee of Ipsos is required to sign a confidentiality agreement requiring him or her to keep confidential all Personal Information of Study Members. Employees who violate the confidentiality agreement are subject to disciplinary actions, including termination when appropriate.
While we strive to use industry-standard security technology, procedures and other measures to help protect your Personal or Demographic Information, we cannot guarantee the security of the information you transmit.
CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY STATEMENT
We may update this privacy statement to reflect changes to our information practices. If we make any material changes we will notify you by email (sent to the email address specified in your account) or by means of a notice on this Site prior to the change becoming effective. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices.
ACCESS TO YOUR INFORMATION AND COMPLAINTS
A) Accessing, Correcting, Updating, and Preventing Use of Your Personal Information or Demographic Information.
If you have submitted Personal or Demographic Information to Ipsos through CHAT or otherwise, or if someone else has otherwise submitted your Personal or Demographic Information to Ipsos, you can:
- Access, Correct, Update Your Personal or Demographic Information, by emailing your request to: support@chatsurvey.net., or by sending us a letter to the address listed below. Ipsos will use reasonable efforts to supply you with the information you requested to access and to correct any factual inaccuracies in this information.
- Prevent Further Use of Your Personal or Demographic Information, by emailing your request to: support@chatsurvey.net.. Alternatively, you may call us at 1-800-782-6899 or send us a letter to the address listed below. In each case, we will then use reasonable efforts to prevent further use of your Personal Information or Demographic Information in our files.
- We will retain your information for as long as you remain a Study Member. If you wish to terminate your participation in our study, please contact us at support@chatsurvey.net.. We will retain and use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.
B) Complaints
Ipsos is committed to working with Study Members to obtain a fair and rapid resolution of any complaints or disputes about privacy. Please send us your questions or comments regarding our privacy practices by emailing us at: support@chatsurvey.net.