Changes in legislation in the field of personal data protection will soon come into force. On 25 May 2018, General Data Protection Act (GDPR) will begin to apply in the European Union. The Parliament of Slovenia will soon consider a new law on the protection of personal data that will introduce changes in the majority of companies, organizations and institutions in Slovenia. The new regulation and the new law will also have consequences for all participants in research institutions – researchers, clients, respondents and the general public.
The ESOMAR association (European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research) is an international institution that gathers over 40,000 members from all over the world under its umbrella. Their priority is care for affirmation of ethical standards of research in all areas of classical and new forms of research. The basic document of the activities of research companies is the ESOMAR Code of Ethical Action which brings a range of responsibilities for companies that are bound by the Code. The ESOMAR logo – which can only be used by members of ESOMAR and the signatories of the Code, is the one that brings the trust of clients, researchers and the general public into published research results. Mediana Institute for Market and Media Research, is the signatory to the ESOMAR Code, and Janja Božič Marolt, President of the Management Board, is a representative of research companies in the ESOMAR association for Slovenia. Janja Božič Marolt regularly teaches students of the Faculty of Economics, B2 College and elsewhere on ethics in market research. Mediana also takes care of regular updating of the translation of the ESOMAR code that is published on the Mediana website.
Mediana fully accepts that people’s involvement in their research is voluntary. Respondents are presented the goal and nature of the project for which data is collected. All their projects and activities are created, realized and documented accurately and transparently. They are particularly careful when research is carried out among children and youth. Since they act in accordance with the ESOMAR Code, they carefully handle the personal data of all participants.
The GDRP regulation also brings new obligations to the Institute Mediana, as well as all other institutions that collect and process personal data, and to individuals participating in their research it brings a set of new rights. They now have the right of insight into all personal data that companies collect about them. Novelty is also that an individual may request that the collected personal data be deleted. Gathering personal data can only begin when researchers have a clearly expressed consent of the individual to collect them. An individual may revoke his consent at any time, by which the approval for processing of their data ceases to be valid. And, ultimately, every individual must be informed of which data will be collected and for what purpose they will be used. These data must not be used for any other purpose for which the individual has not given their consent. In practice, this means, for example, that research companies cannot use collected personal data collected in a research for direct marketing, nor transmit them to any third party that could use them in this way.
In addition to the Institute Mediana, members of ESOMAR in Slovenia and the signatories of the ESOMAR Code include research companies AGB Nielsen, Aragon Episcenter, GFK, Ipsos, Studio Moderna and Valicon.
