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Privacy Policy

 

About Thor Research

Thor Research Limited is a market research company registered in England with the company number 5668679.  Our registered office is 20 High Street, Tetsworth OX9 7AS.

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Thor Research conducts market research on behalf of our clients using a number of quantitative and qualitative methodologies such as telephone interviews; online surveys; focus groups; in-depth interviews.  Our primary focus is in the field of Business-to-Business (B2B) research.

 

These studies collect data for research purposes only.  The feedback that research participants provide is used for aggregated analysis i.e. responses are pooled with those of other survey participants and by default are reported anonymously.

 

Thor Research is registered with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as a data processor for market research purposes and our registration number is Z221863X.

 

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact us via email: privacy@thor-research.co.uk

 

In addition to the information stated in this Privacy Notice, Thor Research abides by the Market Research Society Code of Conduct: https://www.mrs.org.uk/standards/code_of_conduct

 

Our research is based on robust data protection measures to ensure the security of the information we hold, to build trust among research participants and to meet the regulatory and legal requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).  You can read more about the GDPR on the ICO website https://ico.org.uk/

 

For Research Participants: Our Legal Basis for Contacting You

Under the GDPR at least one lawful basis must be satisfied in order to process personal data.  Our lawful basis for approaching you to participate in a survey will depend on the study. The various lawful bases for inviting you to a research study are described below:

 

Legitimate interests:

We may ask you to participate in the study and process your personal information for the legitimate business interests of our clients and/or Thor Research.  Under the GDPR researchers can conduct research based on the legitimate interests of the data controller (or third parties) except where such interests are overridden by your fundamental rights and freedoms as an individual.   We therefore conduct and document a balancing test for each research study in order to:

  • Determine in whose legitimate interests the research is being conducted e.g.

    • Our client (e.g. where we are contacting their customers)

    • Thor Research (e.g. where we re-contact research participants for quality control purposes or where we conduct a self-funded study)

  • Determine if the research is necessary to pursue the legitimate interest and consider:

    • Is the research within the reasonable expectations of the individual?

    • Could the objectives be achieved with the collection of less data?

    • Are there more privacy-enhancing means of processing the data?

  • Balance and assess the fundamental rights and interests of you as a research participant with the interests of the data controller (i.e. our client and/or Thor Research).  In doing this assessment we take care to consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and attempt to structure and carry out the research in the least intrusive and most privacy-enhancing way we can.

 

We respect that your rights as an individual are paramount and you have the right to object to this type of processing if you wish – to do this please contact us via email: privacy@thor-research.co.uk

 

Consent:

We may seek your consent to carry out the research – consent is about giving you the choice and control over how we use your information.  Consent must be:

  • Informed and freely given by clear affirmative statement or action by you

  • Specific to the purpose of the research which we will highlight to you when seeking consent

 

If we use consent as a basis for data collection we will provide you with the following information: 

  • The identity of data controller (either before/after we have obtained your feedback, depending on the objectives of the research)

  • The contact details of the data protection officer

  • The legal basis for processing

  • The purposes of processing

  • Details of any international data transfer (by default all information is stored within the UK, otherwise within the European Economic Area (EEA)

  • The retention period for data or criteria for retention

  • Details of all your other rights including right to withdraw consent at any time; right to object; right to access data; right to rectify data held; right to data portability; right to lodge complaints with supervisory authorities

 

What personal information do we hold and for how long?

As a potential participant in one of our research studies we may hold some personal information about you such as (but not necessarily limited to): your name; your job title; your employer’s name, address and telephone number; your telephone number; your email address.  We hold this information purely for the purpose of conducting research studies and so we can get in touch to ask if you would like to participate in the research. 

 

Your cooperation in any such study is entirely voluntary and you may withdraw from participating at any time.  If you do not wish us to contact you we will store your details indefinitely in a ‘suppression list’ to comply with this request.

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We may obtain your personal information in a variety of ways: e.g. publicly available information; supplied by a client; supplied from a third-party data sample provider.

 

At all times, we work to partner only with third parties that maintain high standards for compliance with the GDPR and privacy.

 

Personal data that we hold/collect about you is normally stored in the UK, otherwise within the European Economic Area ("EEA").

 

Personal data for research purposes is often only required at the outset of the project and we hold this information for the duration of the data collection fieldwork period and subsequent quality control checks.  After this period has elapsed the data is anonymised (either completely de-identified or pseudonymised) and we remove identifying details as early in the process as is feasible.  In this way we strive to minimise the amount of personal data held and retain it only for as long as the personal data is required.

 

If you participate in the research we will also hold any responses that you give to questions asked as part of the research study.  Safeguarding this data is of primary importance to us and your privacy is enshrined by design and by default in our research studies:

  • Any feedback you provide as a participant in our research is anonymised at the earliest opportunity (either completely de-identified or pseudonymised)

  • Information you provide in response to or in connection with a survey will be reported to our clients anonymously – i.e. without identifying you individually, directly or indirectly.

  • Your responses to open-ended questions may contain information that could identify you and such information will be de-identified at an early stage (unless you have expressed a preference for your identity to be linked to those comments).

  • There may be instances where you would like your personal data and/or responses to research questions to be sent to our client (i.e. the research sponsor) e.g. to report a problem or register a complaint.   In such instances we will seek your informed and express consent to allow us to fulfill this request.

 

You can request to see any personal data we hold about you by emailing privacy@thor-research.co.uk

 

We keep our privacy notice under regular review. This privacy notice was last updated in October 2023.

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