When using the ESOMAR our website (hereinafter the “Website”), or any of our offline and/or online services (the “Service” or “Services”offline or online), we may need to collect your personal data in order to tailor these experiences and services to your needs and expectations.

This privacy notice provides you with essential details to understand how we collect your personal data, for what reasons we do so, and the conditions we apply to its use within our organisations, our employees and volunteers who work to further ESOMAR’s objectives, as well as our business partners (data processors, sponsors, and others).

Who are we? ESOMAR Society and its subsidiaries

This privacy notice applies to the Websites, Services, offerings and operations of ESOMAR Society, and comprises the Services, offerings and operations of its subsidiaries the ESOMAR B.V. and the ESOMAR Foundation; all entities are headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. These entities may be referred to as ESOMAR or ESOMAR Foundation indistinctively.

As the self-regulatory body of the data, research, insight and data analytics community, we are committed to achieving the highest standards to protect your personal data and safeguard your privacy.

Should you have any questions about this privacy notice, wish to exercise your data subjects’ rights, or have any concerns about our data collection practices, you can contact us preferably by e-mail at privacy@esomar.org, or by telephone at +31 20 661 41 21, or by post at ESOMAR, Burgemeester Stramanweg 105, 1101 AA Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Your rights, as afforded by the General Data Protection Regulation

As entities based in the European Union, ESOMAR entities are required to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (“GDPR”) when processing personal data in the context of its services and operations. Accordingly, individuals, service users, ESOMAR members whom we process personal data about are protected by the GDPR by a series of rights and without prejudice to other applicable laws. This includes a right to:

  • Adequate information about our processing activities concerning you;
  • Access to the personal information we have processed about you;
  • Rectify personal information we process concerning you;
  • Erasure of personal information we hold concerning you;
  • Restrict the processing of your personal information we hold concerning you;
  • Data portability of your personal information we hold concerning you;
  • Object to the processing of your personal information by us.

The implementation of these rights by ESOMAR are subject to the conditions and limits established by the General Data Protection. Should we believe your request to be ineligible due to the conditions and limits of the GDPR, we shall inform you duly of this as well as our reasoning.

Complaints? Contact our lead data protection authority

Should you be unhappy with the way we are dealing with your personal details or the way we are addressing your concerns, please note that as a data subject you always have the right to refer a complaint to our supervisory authority, the Dutch Data Protection Authority: the Autoriteit Persoonsgevens which can be reached at https://www.autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl/ or with the supervisory authority in the country you are residing.

What personal data do we process concerning you, and why?

In accordance with our legal and ethical obligations, we strive to minimise the personal data we collect and process about you to those required for the Services. Nonetheless, we may need to collect and process your personal data when you:

  • Navigate the Services offered on our Website in order to personalise your experience based on your declared preferences or pricing segments;
  • Register for a Service provided by ESOMAR in order to ensure the right Services are delivered to you in accordance with your selections and preferences;
  • Make a purchase on any of our platforms in order to complete the transaction;
  • Respond to or participate in a survey, contest, or a marketing communication in order to inform you about our activities, the results;
  • Make a customer service request or submit a complaint in the context of our disciplinary process.

In order to deliver our portfolio of services to our end-users and members, the processing of personal data is essential to ensure we tailor the service in accordance with your needs and expectations. Depending on the nature of the service, we process the following categories of personal data:

Membership services

In order to ensure validity of the application, and subsequently the delivery of the service and its associated benefits, ESOMAR processes your full name, e-mail address, gender, job title, telephone number, company and financial details, and in the case of a personal membership a home address. Some of these details, particularly your provided name, company and job title, are published in a public register for members of the general public to consult and confirm membership status and committee membership and consequently adherence to the ICC/ESOMAR International Code. Other details, for example your financial details or your home address are kept confidential and not revealed to the public. Members are able to make changes or prevent the publication of any details they wish to keep confidential through their MyESOMAR settings.

YES Programme

In order to ensure the validity of the application and subsequently the delivery of the service and its associated benefits, ESOMAR processes your full name, country of residence, age range, e-mail address, bank details (for payment of services), date of birth, biographical information, your photo, your company details, and your CV (resume).

YES also operates an awards scheme, and processes for applicants their full name, country of residence, gender, full project abstract, company details, date of birth, and bank details (for the payment of the financial recompense attributed to the award).

Disciplinary and help desk services

In order to evaluate the validity of the complaint, and ensure an appropriate follow-up, ESOMAR processes personal details from complainants and enquirers (submitting complaints or queries regarding a market, opinion social research or data analytics activity) and responders (members responding to a complaint or query levied regarding their activities) personal details and shares it with industry experts and staff tasked with resolving conflicts or safeguarding professional standards bound by non-disclosure or similar agreements. In particular, ESOMAR processes your full name, e-mail address and telephone number, and country of residence, as well as company details and depending on the nature of the complaint financial, contractual, and private e-mail correspondence between the parties that may be required to analyse the merit of the complaint or query.

MyESOMAR account

ESOMAR processes your e-mail address, full name and company details, date of birth, and full postal address in order to ensure that the account integrity is secure and can be linked back to you as a data subject. This information is then subsequently used across our other services to avoid duplication of data and reduce additional information you must provide when subsequently subscribing to other services.

You can view and edit your personal details in your MyESOMAR account to rectify any details which are out of date or incorrect.

ESOMAR app

ESOMAR operates a mobile application, the ESOMAR app providing networking tools and services for event attendees and end-users. This application collects the Device ID to retain any preferences that may be set by the end-user.

Marketing services

ESOMAR dispatches regularly e-mail marketing about our services, news and updates from our partners, and other content that is relevant to professionals and organisations working in or with the market, opinion and social research and data analytics sector. For these services, ESOMAR processes your country of residence, age range, full name and company details, and gender and e-mail address in order to further customise the content, track performance of our e-mail marketing service, and improve the relevance of our content. If you wish to unsubscribe from the ESOMAR newsletter, you can always click the unsubscribe link contained in the footer of each communication.

Directory services

ESOMAR operates a directory service listing professionals and organisations of the market, opinion and social research and data analytics sector. The service enables end-users to locate and identify potential providers and clients for their research and data analytics activities. For these services, ESOMAR processes of its end-users their full name and company details, job title, e-mail and company address in order to enable users to contact one another in the context of the service.

Event services

ESOMAR delivers networking and best-practice events and trainings throughout the world. These events require the registration of participants and often the payment of an attendance fee. Accordingly, ESOMAR processes from event registrants their data of birth, company details, full name, job title, industry of employment, age range, country, gender, and e-mail address in order to provide essential practical details about the event being attended, to track performance of our event services and improve the relevance of our event programmes for you, and provide to our sponsors and partners details to track the performance of their investments into our event services.

Any person who attends or participates in ESOMAR’s events grants permission to ESOMAR to record his or her audio/visual/images, including but not limited to, photographs, digital images, voices, sound or video recording, audio clips, and, without notifying such person, to use such recordings for promotional purpose, including advertisements for future programs and events. It is understood that this material will be communicated in a legitimate manner both internally and outside this organisation and is not intended to cause any harm or undue embarrassment to the parties involved.

Synopsis/outline submissions

As part of our event services, ESOMAR operates peer-review process for some of its events, in the context of these events ESOMAR issues a call for synopses and subsequently selects submissions that best meet the criteria for inclusion in the programme. For these purposes, ESOMAR process from applicants their country of residency, biographical details, full name and company details, age range, associated LinkedIn profile information, photos of the applicant, CV (resume), date of birth, and e-mail address to allow the selection committee to make a complete assessment of the synopsis, publish the profile of the individual on event programmes and promotional materials relating to the event, publish the synopsis in ESOMAR’s resources library and maintain historical records of the sector’s expertise.

Live streaming

As part of our event services, ESOMAR offers a live-streaming option for some of its events, in the context of this service and registration for it, ESOMAR processes your full name, your e-mail address, your industry details, country of residence, age range, and IP address in order to ensure the service is delivered to you personally and to track the performance of our live streaming service, and improve the relevance of our content for you.

Research World publications

ESOMAR operates a digital news service known as Research World and on occasion prints and dispatches hard copies of a Research World magazine to its subscribers. In the case of the digital service, ESOMAR processes your full name, IP address, e-mail address, company details, country of residence, and gender in order to personalise the content and web browsing experience to your preferences and expectations, track performance of our publication service, and improve the relevance of our content for you. For the delivery of hard copies of Research World Magazine, an integral part of the membership service offer, we process your personal membership status, your company, name and postal address to ensure successful delivery of the dispatched magazine.

Concierge services

ESOMAR may provide assistance to its members, event speakers and invited guests to secure travel services and hotel bookings in accordance with our policies for such support. In order to book on behalf of individuals benefiting from this service, ESOMAR may process your full name, e-mail address, country of residence, your company details, relevant travel document numbers, and national identification numbers required to make such bookings.

Employee and employment applicants at ESOMAR

ESOMAR employs a full-time secretariat, in order to fulfil its contractual obligations with its staff and applicants, ESOMAR processes employee full name, date of birth, home address, national identification and social security details, bank details, family status, CV (resume), gender, health information. Further details about how ESOMAR processes employee information can be found in employees’ staff manuals.

Under what legal basis do we process your personal data?

For all processing activities we are required to inform you under which basis we collect, process, and use your personal data.

Membership services

Most of our Services form an integral part of our membership subscription offer, a contractual arrangement between ESOMAR and its members. We collect and process personal data to fulfil the contractual obligations that result from this agreement.

Our membership offer enables our members to benefit from facilitated networking (via events, webinars, a public registry, and online discussion platforms, etc.…), access to exclusive content produced by ESOMAR and its members, and protection and coverage under our disciplinary process. We therefore collect personal details in order to deliver these subscribed services and to personalise a member’s experience.

In order to finalise a membership subscription, and in accordance with our application procedures, personal data may be shared with other ESOMAR members for the purposes of verifying your credentials and subsequently for the purposes of delivering the services mentioned above. These ESOMAR members, who may be located outside the European Union, have access to your details, for the purposes of verifying and completing the contracting phase or the delivery of services at a local level.

ESOMAR publishes a list of its members in order to enable business partners and the general public to confirm your membership status and coverage under our disciplinary process.

Marketing communications

ESOMAR regularly sends out newsletters containing information about upcoming activities and events, industry news and updates, and special offers you may qualify for. For you to receive these newsletters, we collect and process your personal details to ensure they reach you and that we filter content that does not interest you.

We may also collect your e-mail address as part of the consent verification process ensuring that we do not send marketing communications to individuals who have not requested it. On the basis of our legitimate interest to do so, we collect, and process details provided by you for this purpose and retain the data for a period no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which it was processed.

These communications form an integral part of the membership offer and are therefore communicated in the context of that contractual arrangement. However, we also target marketing communications to individuals who have opted in for our communications under the legal basis of consent for example individuals who are not members but have attended or participated in our events or webinars.

Event services

ESOMAR endeavours to facilitate the most comprehensive networking experience possible and accordingly works with sponsors and partners to expand networking opportunities such as offering platforms to:

  • Disseminate knowledge and content,
  • Access and share photos of event attendees on a third-party platform,
  • Participate and contribute to surveys and discussions through platforms like the ESOMAR App or similar third-party platforms,
  • Provide you with relevant and related marketing messages and special offers,
  • Connect you with other event delegates through the ESOMAR (Events) App.

ESOMAR event attendees benefit from these services as part of our contractual service agreement upon registration.

Content services

ESOMAR provides a wide array of content-driven Services, such as webinars and other online events. like our webinars which allow our users to gain new knowledge and insights on a wide variety of topics Content Some of the content services provided are provided by sponsoring organisations who provide offer you with the Service content in exchange for your contact details in order to provide contact you with further relevant marketing information.

These personal details are collected by our partner ON24 when you register and consent to attending one of our events and then subsequently shared with the sponsoring organisations under their contracting terms with us.

Who do we share your personal data with?

In order to deliver our Services, we partner with third parties and processors in order to deliver the best experience possible for you., our service user.

These partners are contractually bound with us in order to ensure that your personal data benefits from the same levels of protection as they have when handled directly by ESOMAR. Currently, our partners include:

  • Airgo (VCK Travel): Airgo is a Netherlands-based company, serving as our partner supporting us with flight bookings as part of our concierge services. 
  • Airtable: Airtable is a US-based company, providing task management support, serving as our partner supporting us to deliver our Research World services.
  • Apple Store operated by Apple, a US-based company, is our partner supporting us with the distribution of our ESOMAR (Events) App.
  • BCS HRM & Salarisadministratie BV is a Netherlands-based company, supporting us to manage our contractual and legal requirements for our employees and salary administration.
  • Amazon Web Services: is a US-based company, subsidiary of Amazon that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms to support us delivering our complaints and queries handling platform services.
  • Google Play operated by Google, a US-based company, is our partner supporting us with the distribution of our ESOMAR (Events) App.
  • Livestream.com is our partner supporting us with the delivery and distribution of our livestream service.
  • Salesforce: is our partner delivering our customer relationship management platform enabling us to deliver personalised experiences for all our users and customers. It is also the platform managing our subscribers for our marketing communications ensuring that we respect users’ consent and preferences.
  • On24: US-based company, selected as our partner to deliver our webinar platform, enabling us to offer online webinars and digital events. On24 holds registration details that are shared to ESOMAR and third parties providing sponsored content on the basis of the data subject’s consent.
  • SmugMug: US-based company given access to photos of event attendees for the purposes of capturing key highlights of the event. These are used by attendees for personal purposes and by ESOMAR for marketing purposes particularly to secure new sponsors for future events.
  • Microsoft: US-based company, is our partner delivering our business suite of tools used by our staff to communicate and deliver our core services through website hosting on Azure and Office 365. ESOMAR attributes O365 licenses to trusted and appointed volunteers for the purposes of their mission as national representatives of ESOMAR, as members of our statutory committees or our sounding boards. These licenses are granted to individuals based in and outside of the EU who sign specific agreements regarding their access and use of our platforms and any personal data found within them.
  • Dev-Up: Dev-Up is a Netherlands-based partner supporting us with website, CRM, various applications development and technical support. Accordingly, Dev-Up has access to the personal details found on our web-based servers in order to provide technical support to our staff, participants and individuals using our services. 
  • CARD Services: is a company based in The Netherlands and is our IT consulting partner.
  • FocusVision: FocusVision, a US-based company, and is our partner supporting us to run surveys as part of our event and membership services.
  • Saferpay: Saferpay by SIX Payment Services (Europe) S.A., a Luxembourg-based partner supports us with the fulfilment of payment services. Accordingly, SIX Payment Services has access to the personal details you provide in order to ensure the success of financial transactions between you and us.
  • Profit4SF: is a company based in The Netherlands and is our Salesforce implementation partner.
  • Cloudteam Company: is a company based in The Netherlands and is our consulting partner.
  • UK Engage: is a leading services provider administering voting services for elections, ballots, polls, AGMs, and other General Meetings.

For how long do we retain the data?

In accordance with the GDPR, ESOMAR retains your personal details for as long as is necessary for the initial purpose for which it was collected. As a result, depending on the Service you use we may retain your data for differing periods of time. Nonetheless, as an indication:

  • We retain your personal details collected with consent for our marketing communications for a period no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which it was processed.
  • We retain your personal details collected in the context of our membership services for the duration of the membership contract and a further period for 5 years for historical archiving purposes. In the context of content submitted to us by you, for example submissions to participate in events, publication of best-practice papers, or the attribution of an award, ESOMAR retains your personal details for these purposes for an indeterminate period for the purposes of historical archiving purposes relating to the history of market, opinion and social research and data analytics.
  • We retain your personal details for transaction purposes for a period of 7 years in accordance with Dutch laws applying to financial records.

Use of cookies

A cookie is a small amount of data that is sent to your computer browser from a website’s computer and is stored on your computer, if your browser’s preferences allow it. Each website can send its own cookie to your browser but (to protect your privacy) your browser only permits a website to access its own cookies, not the cookies sent to you by other sites.

ESOMAR uses cookies to help the server identify you when you log in to secure areas of the site, such as MyESOMAR, ESOMAR Directory, and MR Job board. The cookies store your login information, so you can enter and leave the website without having to re-enter the same information over and over.

We also use cookies to track our Website’s online traffic flow (through Google Analytics, Google Ad Manager, Matomo, Linkedin Analytics), to share links on social networks, and to personalise information in online forms.

You have the opportunity to set your web browser to accept all cookies, to notify you when a cookie is issued, or not to receive cookies at any time. Information supplied by cookies can help ESOMAR provide you with a better user experience. Please note that not accepting cookies may affect your experience on our Website. ability to access certain parts of our website. You can view the list of cookies used by ESOMAR here.

Applicable Law

This privacy policy notice is governed by and construed in accordance with the law of the Netherlands. All disputes arising out of or in connection with this privacy policy must be dealt with under the jurisdiction of the courts of the Netherlands.

Amendments

ESOMAR reserves the right to change any of the terms of this privacy policy notice at any time and without prior notice. ESOMAR therefore recommends that you review this privacy policy notice from time to time, or before making a transaction.

Last update: July 5th 2022