Didn’t know there was an official day for data privacy until yesterday when I read about the best practices for survey and opinion research released by the Marketing Research Association (MRA). The MRA released apparently released their one-page data privacy paper and guidelines in recognition of Data Privacy Day which is celebrated in the US, Canada and 27 other European countries on January 28th.
The best practice paper includes ” guidance vetted by industry leaders and MRA volunteers, to help researchers legally and ethically navigate the relationship between themselves, respondents and regulators”. You can access their best practice appears here: http://www.cmor.org/ga/bestpractices.cfm
Unfortunately, what I’m not surprised, NOT to see is that there are no guidelines on transparency in off-shoring, nor any talk of the risks involved in off-shoring survey fielding, i.e. sending respondent/customer names and emails abroad (to say nothing about client data/IP protection). This is because the vast majority of MRA member companies are involved in various levels of off-shoring, and almost none of them have signed the EU Safe Harbor contract. And none of them tell their clients about it.
I guess it’s not a problem till there’s a problem. Sad really though especially when you consider the declining status of market research on many fronts.
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Tom H. C. Anderson – Anderson Analytics
