SurveyEngine Privacy Statement - SurveyEngine GmbH

SurveyEngine Privacy Statement

Last updated: February 9, 2024.

This privacy policy explains how SurveyEngine (SurveyEngine GmbH) handles your personal information and data. This privacy policy is intended to be compliant with the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in effect from May 25 2018.

This privacy policy applies to the SurveyEngine GmbH website (surveyengine.com), our research software platform services (Platform) and our professional services.

We periodically update this Privacy Policy. We will post any privacy policy changes on this page and, if the changes are significant, we will provide more prominent notice by sending you an email notification.

While we will notify you of any material changes to this Privacy Policy, we encourage you to review this document periodically. We will also keep prior versions of this Privacy Policy in an archive for your review.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our treatment of the information you provide us, please write to us by email at info@surveyengine.com or by mail to SurveyEngine GmbH, Viktoria-Luise-Platz 7, 10777 Berlin, Germany.

1. Use of the SurveyEngine Platform

The SurveyEngine Platform

Our online research platform service allows anyone that uses it: Subscribers who have registered to use the platform and professional service clients (collectively ‘Customers’) and SurveyEngine itself to create and deploy online surveys. The Platform can be used to collect data from respondents who have been invited to participate by the survey creators. The information collected by the Platform whether by subscribers providing their contact and payment information, respondents providing answers to research questions or metadata, is stored and managed on our service providers’ servers. 

Use by SurveyEngine

We use our Platform to provide professional research services to clients who request them and also for internal research and training exercises. SurveyEngine also will use the Platform for maintenance, software updates and to provide support and consulting to current subscribers.

Use by Customers

Professional Services Clients engage SurveyEngine to author surveys, collect and manage respondent data on their behalf for delivery or further processing. Unless otherwise stated and for the purposes of privacy, the Client is regarded as the survey creator even if SurveyEngine is tasked with creating and managing the survey on their behalf.

Subscribers use the Platform to create their own surveys and manage data collection themselves. In this case, SurveyEngine does not control the content of these surveys or the types of information that subscribers may choose to collect or manage using the Platform.
Customers own their survey data. SurveyEngine treats created surveys as if they were private. We don’t sell them to anyone and we don’t use the survey responses collected for our own purposes, except in a limited set of circumstances (e.g. for quality management and technical maintenance). That information is used, disclosed and protected by customers’ according to their own privacy policies and is not subject to this Privacy Policy.

SurveyEngine processes Customers’ information as they direct and in accordance with our agreements with those Customers.

Our agreements with our customers prohibit us from using that information, except as necessary to provide and improve the Platform, as permitted by this Privacy Policy, and as required by law.

Use by Respondents

Survey respondents answer surveys that are created by survey creators. We host the surveys on our Service Provider’s servers and collect the responses for the survey creator.

Where the content creator is a third-party, SurveyEngine merely acts as a custodian on behalf of the creator who controls your data. This applies to respondents within the SurveyEngine Patient community as well as respondents from other panels.
SurveyEngine is bound by agreements with the creator and under these terms is generally restricted from selling your responses to third parties or sharing survey responses with third-party advertisers or marketers (although the creator might).

SurveyEngine collects information under the direction of its customers and has no direct relationship with the individuals whose Personal Information it processes. SurveyEngine is not responsible for our customers’ use of the information they collect on the Platform. If you have any questions about a survey you are taking, please contact the survey creator directly. SurveyEngine is not responsible for the content of that survey or your responses to it. The survey creator is usually the same person that invited you to take the survey and sometimes has their own privacy policy. Our agreements with our customers prohibit them from using the Platform to collect, manage, or process Sensitive Information unless a processing agreement in accordance with Article 28 of the GDPR is executed. If you think a survey violates our Terms of Use or may be engaging in illegal activity, contact SurveyEngine to report it.

SurveyEngine acknowledges that respondents have the right to access their Personal Information. Our customers’ control this relationship and are ultimately responsible for correcting, deleting or updating information they have collected from you using the Platform.

If you are a respondent of one of our customers and would no longer like to be contacted by that customer that uses our Platform, please contact the customer that you interact with directly.

If requested to remove data we will respond within a reasonable timeframe. We may work with our customers to help them provide notice to their visitors about their data collection, processing and usage.

We may transfer Personal Information to companies that help us provide our service. Transfers to subsequent third parties are covered by the service agreements with our customers.

“Sensitive Information”

Sensitive includes Special Category Data as defined by Article 9(2) of the GDPR and other important personal information. ‘Special Category Data’ includes personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation. In addition Sensitive Information includes credit or debit card numbers, personal financial account information, Social Security numbers, passport numbers, driver’s license numbers or similar personal identifiers or other employment or financial information.

2. Information We Collect

When You Visit our Websites

You may explore the SurveyEngine Website without providing any Personal Information about yourself. We use analytics software to allow us to better understand the functionality of our platform on your PC or device. This software may record information such as frequency of use, events that occur within the Platform, aggregated usage and performance data. In addition to information we collect on our Websites, when you use our Platform we may also collect your city location, device model and version, device identifier (or “UDID”), OS version and your Platform credentials. 

We may link information we store within the analytics software to Personal Information you submit within the Platform. We do this to improve the services we offer you and improve our marketing, analytics and site functionality.

When You Use the Platform

When you register for the Platform, we request that you provide Personal Information about yourself. We may also collect Navigational Information. 

When You Respond to Surveys

As a respondent, all responses you provide within a survey will be recorded on our servers. In normal usage, you will have been redirected from a panel provider at your own consent to the SurveyEngine survey with an anonymous project ID such that no personal information will be shared with us from your panel provider. Your IP address will be recorded within SurveyEngine system logs. IP Addresses will be anonymised by default in customer datafiles unless explicitly requested by the customer.

When you become a Professional Services Clients

Personal information will be recorded including contact details, project information, payment status and other information necessary to conduct normal business and the execution of contractual arrangements.

“Personal Information”

This refers to any information voluntarily submitted to SurveyEngine that identifies you personally, including your contact information, e-mail address, company name, address, phone number, and other information about yourself or your business. Personal Information can also include information about any transactions, both free and paid, that you enter into on the Websites, and information about you that is available on the internet, such as from Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google, or publicly available information that we acquire from service providers.

Personal Information also includes Navigational Information or Payment Information where such information can directly or indirectly identify an individual. Navigational information refers to information about your computer and your visits to this website such as your IP address, geographical location, browser type, referral source, length of visit and pages viewed. Payment information includes payment information from you when you subscribe to the Platform, including credit card numbers and billing information, using third party PCI-compliant service providers.

Log Files

When you use our Platform or view content provided by us, we automatically collect information about your computer hardware and software. This information can include your IP address, browser type, domain names, the internet service provider (ISP), the files viewed on our site (e.g., HTML pages, graphics, etc.), operating system, clickstream data, access times and referring website addresses. This information is used by SurveyEngine for the operation of the Platform, to maintain quality of the Platform, and to provide general statistics regarding use of the SurveyEngine Website. For these purposes, we do link this automatically-collected data to Personal Information such as name, email address, address, and phone number.

Information We Collect from Third Parties

From time to time, we may receive Personal Information about you from third party sources including partners with which we offer co-branded services or engage in joint marketing activities and publicly available sources such as social media websites.

Information About Children

The Websites are not intended for or targeted at children under 16, and we do not knowingly or intentionally collect information about children under 16. If you believe that we have collected information about a child under 16, please contact us at info@surveyengine.com, so that we may delete the information.

3. How We Use Information We Collect

Compliance with Our Privacy Policy

We use the information we collect only in compliance with this Privacy Policy. Customers are obligated through our agreements with them to also comply with this Privacy Policy.

We Never Sell Personal Information

We will never sell your Personal Information to any third party.

Use of Personal Information

In addition to the uses identified elsewhere in this Privacy Policy, we may use your Personal Information to:

  • Improve your browsing experience by personalising the Websites and to improve the Platform;
  • Send information or SurveyEngine content to you which we think may be of interest to you by post, email, or other means and send you marketing communications relating to our business;
  • Promote the use of our services to you and share promotional and information content with you in accordance with your communication preferences;
  • Provide other companies with statistical information about our users – but this information will not be used to identify any individual user;
  • send information to you regarding changes to our Terms of Service, Privacy Policy (including the Cookie Policy), or other legal agreements
  • Meet legal requirements.

We may, from time to time, contact you on behalf of external business partners about a particular offering that may be of interest to you. In those cases, we do not transfer your Personal Information to the third party.

We use the information collected through our Platform by our customers for the following purposes:

  • to provide the Platform (which may include the detection, prevention, and resolution of security and technical issues);
  • to respond to customer support requests; and
  • otherwise to fulfill the obligations under the SurveyEngine Terms of Service.

Legal Basis for Processing Personal Information

If you are a Visitor or Customer located in the European Economic Area (“EEA”), SurveyEngine GmbH is the data controller of your personal information. SurveyEngine’s Data Protection Officer can be contacted at info@surveyengine.com.

Our legal basis for collecting and using the personal information described above will depend on the personal information concerned and the specific context in which we collect it. However, we will normally collect personal information from you only where we have your consent to do so, where we need the personal information to perform a contract with you, or where the processing is in our legitimate interests and not overridden by your data protection interests or fundamental rights and freedoms. In some cases, we may also have a legal obligation to collect personal information from you.

If we ask you to provide personal information to comply with a legal requirement or to perform a contract with you, we will make this clear at the relevant time and advise you whether the provision of your personal information is mandatory or not (as well as of the possible consequences if you do not provide your personal information). Similarly, if we collect and use your personal information in reliance on our legitimate interests (or those of any third party), we will make clear to you at the relevant time what those legitimate interests are.

Use of Navigational Information

We use Navigational Information to operate and improve the Websites and the Platform. We may also use Navigational Information alone or in combination with Personal Information to provide you with personalised information about SurveyEngine.

Customer Testimonials and Comments

We post customer testimonials and comments on our Websites, which may contain Personal Information. We obtain each customer’s consent via email prior to posting the customer’s name and testimonial.

Use of Credit Card Information

If you give us credit card information, we use it solely to check your financial qualifications and collect payment from you. We use a third-party service provider to manage credit card processing. This service provider is not permitted to store, retain, or use information you provide except for the sole purpose of credit card processing on our behalf.

Security of your Personal Information

We use a variety of security technologies and procedures to help protect your Personal Information from unauthorised access, use or disclosure. We secure the Personal Information you provide on computer servers in a controlled, secure environment, protected from unauthorised access, use or disclosure. All Personal Information is protected using appropriate physical, technical and organisational measures.

Social Media Features

Our Websites include Social Media Features, such as the Facebook Like button and Widgets, such as the Share This button or interactive mini-programs that run on our sites. These features may collect your IP address, which page you are visiting on our sites, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. Social Media Features and Widgets are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our Websites. This Privacy Policy does not apply to these features. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy policy and other policies of the companies providing them.

External Websites

Our Websites provide links to other websites. We do not control, and are not responsible for, the content or practices of these other websites. Our provision of such links does not constitute our endorsement of these other websites, their content, their owners, or their practices. This Privacy Policy does not apply to these other websites, which are subject to any privacy and other policies they may have.

Public Forums

We offer publicly accessible message boards, blogs, and community forums. Please keep in mind that if you directly disclose any information through our public message boards, blogs, or forums, this information may be collected and used by others. We will correct or delete any information you have posted on the Websites if you so request, as described in “Opting Out and Unsubscribing” below.

Retention of Personal Information

How long we keep the information we collect about you depends on the type of information. as described in further detail below. After such time, we will either delete or anonymise your information or, if this is not possible, then we will securely store your information and isolate it from any further use until deletion is possible.

We retain Personal Information that you provide to us where we have an ongoing legitimate business need to do so (for example, as long as is required in order to contact you about the Platform or our other services, or as needed to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes and enforce our agreements).

When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your Personal Information, we securely delete the information or anonymise it or, if this is not possible, then we will securely store your Personal Information and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible. We will delete this information from the servers at an earlier date if you so request, as described in “To Unsubscribe from Our Communications” below.

If you provide information to our customers as part of their use of the Platform, as a respondent for example, our customers decide how long to retain the personal information they collect from you. If a customer terminates its use of the Platform, then we will provide customers with access to all information stored for the customer by the Platform, including any Personal Information provided by you, for export by the customer according to our agreement with our customer. After termination, we may, unless legally prohibited, delete all customer information, including your Personal Information, from the Platform.

If you have elected to receive marketing communications from us, we retain information about your marketing preferences for a reasonable period of time from the date you last expressed interest in our content, products, or services, such as when you last opened an email from us or ceased using your Platform account. We retain information derived from cookies and other tracking technologies for a reasonable period of time from the date such information was created. 

4. How we Share Information we Collect

Service Providers

We employ other companies and people to provide services to visitors to our Websites and our Customers, and users of the Platform and may need to share your information with them to provide information, products or services to you. Examples may include providing panel providers respondent ids in order to register successful survey completion, performing statistical analysis, providing marketing assistance, processing credit card payments, supplementing the information you provide us in order to provide you with better service, and providing customer service or support. In all cases where we share your information with such agents, we explicitly require the agent to acknowledge and adhere to our privacy and customer data handling policies.

Corporate Events

If we (or our assets) are acquired by another company, whether by merger, acquisition, bankruptcy or otherwise, that company would receive all information gathered by SurveyEngine on the Websites and the Platform. In this event, you will be notified via email and/or a prominent notice on our website, of any change in ownership, uses of your Personal Information, and choices you may have regarding your Personal Information.

Compelled Disclosure

We reserve the right to use or disclose your Personal Information if required by law or if we reasonably believe that use or disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, protect your safety or the safety of others, investigate fraud, or comply with a law, court order, or legal process.

5. International Transfer of Information

International Transfers within SurveyEngine’s Entities

To facilitate our global operations, we transfer information between servers in various countries providing the Platform and our back-office operations in Germany and the United States for the purposes described in this policy.

This Privacy Policy shall apply even if we transfer Personal Information to other countries. We have taken appropriate safeguards to require that your Personal Information will remain protected. When we share information about you within and among SurveyEngine affiliated entities, we make use of standard contractual data protection clauses, which have been approved by the European Commission.

International Transfers to Third Parties

Some of the third parties described in this privacy policy, which provide services to us under contract, are based in other countries that may not have equivalent privacy and data protection laws to the country in which you reside. When we share information globally, we make use of the European Commission-approved standard contractual data protection clauses, binding corporate rules for transfers to data processors, or other appropriate legal mechanisms to safeguard the transfer.

6. Cookies and Similar Technologies

Cookies

SurveyEngine and its partners use cookies or similar technologies (such as web beacons and browser fingerprinting) to analyse trends, administer the website, track users’ movements around the website, and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole. To find out more about how we use cookies on our Websites and how to manage your cookie preferences please see our cookie policy.

Navigational Information Collected by Our Customers

Our customers can use the tools we provide, as well as tools provided by third parties, to collect Navigational Information when you visit their webpages on the Platform. SurveyEngine does not control our customers’ use of these tools, nor do we control the information they collect or how they use it.

Single Sign-On

You can log in to our site using a Single Sign-on (SSO) service like your Google account. This service will authenticate your identity and provide you the option to share certain personal information with us such as your name and email address to pre-populate our sign up form. Such services may give you the option to post information about your activities on this Web site to your profile page to share with others within your network.

Flash Cookies and Other Third Party Tracking Technologies

The Adobe Flash Player (and similar applications) use technology to remember settings, preferences, and usage similar to browser cookies but these are managed through a different interface than the one provided by your Web browser. This technology creates locally stored objects that are often referred to as “Flash cookies.” SurveyEngine does not use Flash cookies. However, the customers of our software platform may create pages on the Platform that employ Adobe Flash cookies.

Advertising

We may partner with third-party ad networks to either display advertising on our Web site or to manage our advertising on other sites. Our ad network partner uses cookies and Web beacons to collect information about your activities on this and other Web sites to provide you targeted advertising based upon your interests. If you wish to not have this information used for the purpose of serving you targeted ads, you may opt-out by clicking here (or if located in the European Union, by clicking here). Please note this does not opt you out of being served advertising. You will continue to receive generic ads.

Third-Party Tracking Technologies

The use of cookies and web beacons by any tracking utility company is not covered by our Privacy Policy or Cookie Policy.

7. How to Access & Control Your Personal Data

Reviewing, Correcting and Removing Your Personal Information

You have the following data protection rights:

You can request access, correction, updates or deletion of your personal information.
You can object to processing your personal information, ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information or request portability of your personal information.

If we have collected and processed your personal information with your consent, then you can withdraw your consent at any time. Withdrawing your consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing we conducted prior to your withdrawal, nor will it affect processing of your personal information conducted in reliance on lawful processing grounds other than consent.

You have the right to complain to a data protection authority about our collection and use of your personal information. Contact details for data protection authorities in the EEA, Switzerland and certain non-European countries (including the US and Canada) are available http://ec.europa.eu/justice/article-29/structure/data-protection-authorities/index_en.htm
To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at info@surveyengine.com or by mail to SurveyEngine GmbH, Viktoria-Luise-Platz 7, 10777 Berlin, Germany.

We will respond to your request to change, correct, or delete your information within a reasonable timeframe and notify you of the action we have taken.

Anti-Spam Policy

Our Acceptable Use Policy, applies to us and to our customers and, among other things, prohibits use of the Platform to send unsolicited commercial email in violation of applicable laws, and requires the inclusion in every email sent using the Platform of an “opt-out” mechanism and other required information. We require all of our customers to agree to adhere to the Acceptable Use Policy at all times, and any violations of the Acceptable Use Policy by a customer can result in immediate suspension or termination of the Platform.

To Unsubscribe From Our Communications

You may unsubscribe from our marketing communications by clicking on the “unsubscribe” link located on the bottom of our e-mails, or by sending an email to info@surveyengine.com or by mail to SurveyEngine GmbH, Grunewaldstraße 61-62 10825 Berlin, Germany. Customers cannot opt-out of receiving transactional emails related to their account with us or the Platform.

To Unsubscribe from Our Customers’ Communications

Our customers are solely responsible for their own marketing emails and other communications; we cannot unsubscribe you from their communications. You can unsubscribe from our customers’ marketing communications by contacting them directly.

Contact
SurveyEngine GmbH
Viktoria-Luise-Platz 7
10777 Berlin
Germany

Scroll to Top