Privacy Policy
CoLab Media Consulting Limited is a UK-based market research and consulting firm (registered in England and Wales with number 10416482).
We take privacy very seriously and we adhere to industry best-practise as defined by the Market Research Society Code of Conduct.
In this Privacy Policy we explain what information we (“COLAB”, “us” or “our”) collect about visitors to our website and the data we collect and hold for participants in the market research studies we conduct online and over the phone. We also explain how we may use data; the steps we take to ensure that it is kept secure; as well as your rights and how to contact us.
Our market research work
We conduct telephone and online market research all over the world from our UK office. In most cases our research is ‘business to business’ intended to service the needs of our Clients in understanding you and the business you work for, as current or potential customers, and the products and services that you use.
Why we contact you
Any communication you receive from us, such as e-mail invitations or phone calls, will clearly identify us and explain the purpose(s) of our contact.
When we contact you, it will generally be for one of the following purposes:
To invite you to take part in a survey
To share results from a survey you took part in
To verify answers you recently provided in a market research survey
To validate your registration to our panel
If you are part of our panel, to update and ensure our records are accurate
If we contact you for any other reason, we will always ensure the purpose is compatible with your previous consent.
What information do we collect?
The personal data we hold may include some or all of the following:
Email address (we call this Contact Data)
Your place of work, job role and job title (Profile Data)
Information contained in surveys (Survey Data)
Technical data concerning your use of our Surveys (Technical Data), which may include the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your device to the Internet and details of your visits to our Survey Hosts (LimeSurvey and SoGo Survey) including traffic data and other communications data
Your preferences for the marketing you wish to receive from us and third parties (Marketing Data)
We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data. Aggregated Data may be derived from your personal data but is put together in an aggregated and anonymous manner (so that it cannot be associated with any of your Contact Data or other personal data) and does not constitute personal data for legal purposes. For example, we may anonymise and aggregate your Survey Data with that of others and (a) use it for industry whitepapers, (b) share it with strategic survey partners, and (d) present it in reports to our Clients.
How do we use your personal data, and what is our legal basis for doing so?
These are the legal bases we have for holding and processing your personal data:
Legitimate Interest: For our (or third parties’) legitimate interests, as long as they aren’t overridden by your interests and rights
Consent: Your consent
Obligation: To comply with our legal obligations
Here is how we use your personal data, and our relevant legal basis (Our basis) for doing so:
If you take part in a Survey with us, you provide us with Contact Data. When you enter into, complete or supplement a Survey, you provide Survey Data, which we may provide to the business or businesses that commissioned the Survey and may compile with survey data contributed by others to create Survey-related reports and summaries. Our basis: Consent, Explicit Consent (for Special Categories of Personal Data) and Legitimate Interest (for the furtherance of our survey-related business).
From time to time, you may provide us with feedback or otherwise engage with us in ways that, in combination with other data we hold, may be included in your Profile Data. In accessing surveys, we and our service providers will also collect Technical Data. We use Profile Data and Technical Data to analyse your use of the Surveys and combine it with similar data for other users like you, with the object of making our Surveys better and more relevant to you, to enable us to create content that is more suited to you and to send you more relevant communications. Our basis: Legitimate Interest (making our services and their marketing more specific to you).
Where you opt to receive marketing communications from CoLab and / or our Partners and / or businesses that have commissioned our surveys, we will use your relevant Marketing and Communications Data to communicate that marketing to you. Our basis: Consent.
We retain records of your Surveys and our transactions with you in order to maintain adequate accounting records and to meet legal requirements. Our basis: Obligation.
We will use your Marketing and Communications Data and Identity and Contact Data to keep you informed of important changes to our relationship with you, such as by notifying you of changes to this Privacy Policy. Our basis: Obligation and Legitimate Interest (in maintaining a compliant relationship with you).
We will only use your personal data for the above purposes, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so. We may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent where this is required or permitted by law.
Whom will we share your personal data with ?
We will share your personal data with various third parties, but always for the uses referred to above. These third parties are businesses of the following types:
Our Sponsors - businesses that have commissioned surveys that you participate in
Our Partners - businesses that have partnered with us in providing the surveys to you
We may also share your personal data with others where to do so is mandated by applicable law.
Your Marketing Data will only be shared with a third party for the purpose of them directly marketing to you where you have consented to that marketing.
If we transfer your personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA) to a country that does not provide a similar level of legal protection to that provided by the United Kingdom’s data protection laws, we put in place legally appropriate safeguards to require the protection of your personal data. You can request details of those safeguards by contacting our Data Protection Officer.
If we sell our business or assets, your personal data may be provided to the prospective purchaser’s advisers with appropriate legal protections and will be passed to the new owners of the business.
How long will we keep your personal data for ?
We keep your personal data for as long as is necessary:
for our basis as specified in this Privacy Policy, and
to address relevant legal requirements
To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of that data, the purposes for which we process it, whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, as well as legal requirements.
You can request more details of how we apply these criteria by contacting our Data Protection Officer
When the need to keep your personal data ends, we either delete or anonymise it.
How do we keep your personal data secure ?
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We have procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.
Your legal rights
Under the law, you have the right to:
Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it
Request correction of your personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete your personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; or (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.
Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format.
Withdraw consent to the processing of your personal data, or to profiling by means of your personal data, where consent is the basis for that processing. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent.
If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact our Data Protection Officer by email to the address specified below. You will not have to pay a fee to exercise any of your legal rights as specified above. However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.
We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the relevant personal data (or to exercise any of your other legal rights). This is a security measure we take to help avoid your personal data being disclosed to a person who has no right to receive it.
We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to help speed up our response.
We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month.
Personal Data Request
A personal data request is appropriate if you want:
withdraw consent for any Personal Data currently held
request the erasure of any Personal Data associated with yourself
a copy of all the Personal Data you hold associated with you
Email Opt Out
If you no longer want to receive e-mails from CoLab, please click on the ‘unsubscribe’ link at the bottom of our e-mails.
Contacting us
We have appointed a Data Protection Officer who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this Privacy Policy. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact our Data Protection Officer using the details set out below.
Email address of Data Protection Officer: duncan@colab-consulting.com
[Last reviewed 17th January 2023]