Taverner Research Privacy Policy

Taverner Research adheres to the Australian Market and Social Research (AMSRS) Code of Professional Behaviour, the Market and Social Research Privacy Principles, and all requirements of the Privacy Act.

In accordance with the AMSRS Code of Professional Behaviour, Taverner Research seeks to protect the privacy of individuals through protection of personal information. Market and social research is based on the willing co-operation of the public and the business community. Such co-operation depends on public and business confidence that market research is carried out honestly and objectively using processes that protect the identity and rights of individuals, and without any unwelcome intrusion.

As researchers, our responsibilities towards respondents include (taken from the text of the Code of Professional Behaviour for illustration purposes)

• Respondents' identities must not be revealed without their consent to anyone not directly involved in the market research project (including the client who commissioned the work) or used for any non-research purpose.
• Nobody shall be adversely affected or harmed as a direct result of participating in a market research study. Respondents must be able to check without difficulty the identity and bona fides of researchers.
• Respondents' co-operation in a market research project is entirely voluntary at all stages; they must not be misled when being asked for their co-operation.
• No child under 14 years shall be interviewed without parent's/ guardian's/responsible adult's consent.
• All indications of the identity of respondents should be physically separated from the records of the information they have provided as soon as possible after the completion of any necessary fieldwork quality checks. The researchers must ensure that any information which might identify respondents is stored securely and separately from the other information they have provided, and that access to such material is restricted to authorised research personnel within the researcher's own organisation for specific research purposes (e.g. field administration, DP, panel or longitudinal studies or other forms of research involving recall interviews). To preserve respondents' anonymity not only their names and addresses but also any other information provided by or about them which could in practice identify them (e.g. their company and job title) must be safe-guarded.

These anonymity requirements may be relaxed only under the following safeguards:

1. where the respondent has given explicit permission for this under the conditions of 'informed consent' summarised in Rule 4a and 4b
2. where disclosure of names to a third party (e.g. a sub-contractor) is essential for any research purpose such as data processing or further interview (e.g. an independent fieldwork quality check) or for further follow-up research. The original researcher is responsible for ensuring that any third party agrees to observe the requirements of this Code - in writing, if the third party has not already formally subscribed to the Code.

Australian Market and Social Research Society of Australia http://www.amsrs.com.au