This Privacy Notice explains who we are, the personal data we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, and what your legal rights are.
About Ipsos
Ipsos is a specialist research agency, based in Belgium. This research is conducted by an Ipsos division specialised in healthcare research, known as Ipsos’ “Healthcare Service Line”. The Healthcare Service Line is part of the Ipsos worldwide group of companies, and a member of the EphMRA, the international association of the pharmaceutical market research industry. As such we abide by the EphMRA Code of Conduct and associated regulations and guidelines.
What is Ipsos’ legal basis for processing your personal data?
Ipsos requires a legal basis to process your personal data. Ipsos’ legal basis for processing is your consent to take part in this research survey. If you wish to withdraw your consent at any time, please see the section below covering ‘Your Rights’.
Processing personal data for Drug Safety Monitoring
The Healthcare company commissioning this market research needs some information to continue identifying new side effects and problems with their medicines, and ways in which the risks of known side effects can be minimised.
We are keen on supporting our client efforts towards drug safety and will pass our client details of adverse events that are mentioned during market or clinical research. Although in market or clinical research what you say will, of course, be treated in confidence, should you raise during the research an adverse event in a specific patient or group of patients, we will need to report this even if it has already been reported by you directly to the company or the regulatory authorities.
Please note the sponsoring company may use a different legal basis to further process your personal data for drug safety purposes in compliance with their regulatory obligations.
It may be important for you to know that your individual responses to the research tasks or questions (including text, image and audio-visual content) may need to be retained by Ipsos for up to ten (10) years for the purpose of drug safety monitoring as instructed by the sponsoring client of the research if required.
Everything else you say during the survey will continue to remain confidential, and you will still have the option to remain anonymous if you wish.
How will Ipsos use any personal data including survey responses you provide?
Firstly, responding to this survey is entirely voluntary and any answers are given with your consent.
If you have been invited to participate in this study by a 3rd party, the organisation that invited you to participate has not provided Ipsos with any information relating to you.
In case you will be asked to provide personal data within the survey, Ipsos will keep your personal data and responses in strict confidence in accordance with this Privacy Policy. Anonymised individual responses may be shared with the commissioning client, however Ipsos can assure you that you will NOT be identifiable in any published results, unless you had given your consent to do so.
Any audio and video recordings you provide or consent to being made of your as part of the research project will be stored securely, kept separate and processed in accordance with applicable data protection / privacy laws by Ipsos and, if you give your consent for your personal data or recordings to be shared, by the sponsoring company. Any audio and video recordings will be held by Ipsos for the above research purposes and will be securely destroyed once they are no longer needed.
Ipsos will use your personal data and responses solely for research purposes and to produce anonymous, statistical research findings and insights. In some cases, we or the sponsoring company may seek to use your responses for other purposes. If that is the case, we will seek your consent for such uses of your data.
We will only share recorded material(s) from the group with the Project Team; the Project Team is the Ipsos Project Team, supplier organisations working on this project and if you had given your consent, with the study sponsor.
Who we share your data with
Ipsos will be using certain supplier organisation(s) to assist us in running the research survey and we will need to disclose your personal data to these supplier organisation(s) for that purpose. These supplier organisations include:
Market Research Fieldwork Agencies
Online and Telephone Hosting Platforms
Market Research Venues
Translation Agencies
AI APIs, like Open AI APIs or Google Vertex using an Ipsos dedicated environment
In case any of your answers will be identified as a reportable adverse event, if you will give us your consent we will be sharing your personal data with to the sponsoring company or the regulatory authorities.
How will Ipsos ensure my personal information is secure?
Ipsos takes its information security responsibilities seriously and applies various precautions to ensure your information is protected from loss, theft or misuse. Security precautions include appropriate physical security of offices and controlled and limited access to computer systems as well as techniques such as pseudonymisation and encryption of your data both at rest and in transfer.
How long will Ipsos retain my personal data and identifiable responses?
We will only retain your data in a way that can identify you for as long as is necessary to support the research project and findings.
Your personal details used to invite you take part is this market research study, will be securely deleted from our systems once the study and any quality control checks are complete; this is usually carried out within three months of project close.
If your individual responses to the research tasks or questions (including text, image and audio-visual content) are identifiable, it may be necessary to retain this material securely for a period of up to:
One (1) year for research purposes
Ten (10) years for the purpose of drug safety monitoring by the sponsoring company if required
Your rights
You have the right to access your personal data within the limited period that Ipsos holds it. It’s important to note that If you have been invited to participate in this study by a 3rd party:
unless you provide any personal information that identifies, or could be used to identify you, we will not hold any information that would enable Ipsos to identify your responses. Therefore, we would not be able to provide a copy.
However, if you do include any personal information that identifies, or could be used to identify you, we can provide a copy of your responses to this research on request at any time before the results are anonymised.
Providing responses to this survey is entirely voluntary and is done so with your consent. You have the right to withdraw your consent and to object to our processing of your personal data at any time.
You also have the right to rectify any incorrect or out-of-date personal data about you which we may hold.
If you want to exercise your rights, please contact us at the below Ipsos address.
If you have any complaints, we will appreciate if you give us an opportunity to resolve any issue first, by contacting us as set out below. You are, however, always entitled to contact the regulatory body, Belgian Data Protection Authority, if you have concerns on how we have processed your personal data. You can find details about how to contact the Belgian Data Protection Authority at https://www.dataprotectionauthority.be/citizen. If you are located in another country, please consult this page: Data protection around the world | CNIL. Other national data protection authorities are also likely to accept your complaint
Where will my personal data be held & processed?
All of your personal data used and collected for this survey will be stored by Ipsos in data centres and servers within the European Economic Area (EEA).
We may though need to transfer your personal data to countries outside the European Economic Area. Some countries may not have laws that provide the same protections on personal data as inside the European Economic Area. Groups to whom Ipsos transfers personal data in such countries will be required to sign agreements to protect personal data or agree to data transfer agreements with third parties.
How can I contact Ipsos about this survey and/or my personal data?
Contact Ipsos: E-mail: dpo.belgium@ipsos.com with topic of the market research in the email subject line.