TZU AND CO. Privacy and Confidentiality Policy
TZU AND CO. strictly adheres to The Research Society Code of professional behaviour in relation to research confidentiality and data security. All research data collected is strictly confidential and anonymous pursuant to informed consent to use personal data by other means.
Reporting displays aggregated data and prohibits identification of individual respondents. Personal data collected will never be used or sold for direct marketing without direct informed consent of the individual. TZU AND CO. maintains research industry standard requirements for data security management with local country storage on protected servers.
Respondent anonymity
Respondent’s anonymity is strictly preserved. The respondents must give informed consent for data to be passed on in a form that allows them to be personally identified. The Researcher must ensure that the information will not be used for any non-research purposes and that the specified recipient of the information has agreed to conform to confidentiality requirements. The Client has no right to access the names and addresses of respondents unless express permission for this is received or if this is only to be used for managing project implementation and cannot be linked to actual responses. All indications of the identity of Respondents must be permanently removed from the records of information they have provided as soon as they are no longer necessary for research purposes. Where it is necessary to retain identifying details, they must be stored securely and separately from other information the Respondent has provided (e.g. with the linkage maintained by the use of an intervening variable). Access to such material must be restricted to authorised research personnel within the Researcher’s own organisation for specific research purposes (e.g. field administration, data processing, panel or “longitudinal” studies, or other forms of research involving recall interviews). To preserve Respondents’ anonymity not only their names and addresses but also any other information provided by or about them that could in practice identify them must be safeguarded. These anonymity requirements are only allowed to be varied if the respondent has given explicit permission for this under the conditions of ‘informed consent’. This can be required where disclosure of names to a third is essential for research purpose such as data processing or further interview (e.g. an independent fieldwork quality check) or for further follow‐up research. The original Researcher is responsible for ensuring that any such third party agrees to observe the requirements of this Code – in writing, if the third party has not already formally subscribed to the Code. These anonymity requirements relate to any records from which the identity of the Respondent is apparent, or can reasonably be ascertained, including a Respondent’s photograph, verbatim quotes and audio or video taped interviews. Permission to observe an interview/group discussion by a third party must be gained from the respondent.Voluntary participation
Please note that participation in our research is voluntary, refusal to participate will involve no penalty or loss of benefits to which the respondent is otherwise entitled and the respondent may discontinue participation at any time without penalty or loss of benefits to which the respondent is otherwise entitled. All research respondents have the right to decline to participate and to withdraw from the research at any stage they desire.Informed consent
All research participants agree that they are providing informed consent to participate in the research by proceeding to complete the survey. This includes:- The purpose of the research
- Their right to decline to participate and to withdraw from the research once participation has begun
- The extent, if any, to which confidentiality of records identifying the respondent will be maintained and the limits of confidentiality
- An explanation of whom to contact for answers to pertinent questions about the research and research respondents’ rights
- Clear conditions on incentives for participation