NielsenIQ Strategic Analytics and Insights Privacy Notice
This Notice is applicable and has an effective date as of June 27, 2025 for new Study participants
Thank you for agreeing to participate in our market research study. For decades, NielsenIQ has set the global standard for market and consumer insight research. Our insights are based on representative samples of the population and help our clients (e.g., manufacturers, retailers, media companies, nonprofits and governments) learn about what consumers watch, listen to, and buy. Your participation in this study helps companies understand your behaviors and preferences, which often helps them provide better consumer products and services.
As the controller of personal data processed about you, (“NielsenIQ“, “NIQ”, “we“, or “us“) is committed to protecting your privacy and handling your data in an open and transparent manner. This Privacy Notice (“Notice”) describes how the NielsenIQ company conducting this market research study handles the Personal Information we collect in connection with our recruitment efforts and your participation in any of our studies conducted online through our Website(s), in person, or over the phone (hereinafter referred to as “Surveys”, “Study“, or “Studies“), and the rights you may have over this information. Participation in our Studies is always voluntary. Participants’ Health Data Notice supplements this Notice and describes our privacy practices as related to consumer health data.
The company conducting this Survey belongs to the group of companies listed here, which together form the “NIQ Group.” This Notice does not apply to any other product or service owned by NielsenIQ or any other third party with which you may interact.
In this Notice, “Personal Information” means any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual (one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier). This includes details like name, address, phone number, and emails, but also encompasses information derived from inferences and insights about you, such as your purchase habits, preferences, and interests. The term also includes “Personal Data”, or similar terms as defined in applicable law.
When we refer to “Sensitive Personal Information”, it means Personal Information that, if disclosed, could lead to identity theft, fraud, or significant harm to a consumer. This includes information revealing an individual’s racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of identifying an individual, data concerning health, sex life, or sexual orientation. The term also includes “Special Category Personal Information”, or similar terms as defined in applicable law.
Notice at Collection of Personal Information
This Notice at Collection provides some key information about our privacy practices: the categories of Personal Information we collect; how we obtain, share, and maintain Personal Information; and how you can instruct NIQ to stop sharing your Personal Information.
For transparency purposes, please note that we do not use your name, address, or any directly identifiable information you provide to us for direct marketing or sales purposes to you. We never share this identifiable information with marketers, nor do we permit our business customers to use it for direct marketing or sales to you.
We may collect the following categories of Personal Information through our Surveys:
– Identifiers/ Social Media Profile Information, collected directly from you, from third-party Non-NIQ research panels of which you are a member (“Third-Party Panels”), or automatically from you when you interact with our Surveys, such as your name, birth year, email address, or certain profile information stored in your social media platform account should you agree to participate in a Study through a third-party service such as Facebook or Twitter. We automatically collect device identifiers such as Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, and identifiers and other information that are stored in cookies and similar technologies.
– Demographic/ Biographical Information, collected directly from you, from Third-Party Panels, or automatically from you when you interact with our Surveys, such as your marital status, age, household size, occupation, and income range.
– Behaviors and Preferences/ Commercial Information, collected directly from you to help us better understand consumer behavior, use, and trends. “Behavior data” is when, why or how you do things such as how frequently you shop for groceries, use your computer, TV or the Internet. “Preference data” means the choices you make such as which breakfast cereals you buy, which stations to listen to or watch, or websites you visit. “Commercial Information” is what products or services you’ve purchased, shown interest in, or provided feedback on, your payment methods and purchasing power, your price sensitivity and willingness to pay for specific products and services, and any other information you provide that can help us better understand consumer behavior, use, and trends.
– Internet or Other Electronic Network Activity Information, collected automatically from you when you participate in an online Survey and/or otherwise interact with our Website, such as the pages of our Website that you visit and the amount of time you spend viewing the Website, form field entries, IP address, push notification status, browser type, unique device identifiers, device model, operating system and version, browser type and language, operating system, and carrier.
– Approximate Location Information (city, region, country) collected automatically from you when you participate in an online Survey and/or otherwise interact with our website, based on the IP address assigned to the device that you use to access our Survey.
– Sensory Information/ Audio, Electronic, Visual, or Similar Interaction Data collected directly from you if you are participating in an audio/video taped focus group or in-person or online interview or similar, or any content or material you choose to submit, upload, or transmit to NIQ such as photos, videos, images, or the likeliness of the individual submitting the content in connection with your participation in a Survey.
– Professional or Employment-related Information/ Education Information, collected directly from you if you voluntarily reveal it in your Survey responses, such as your occupation, income range, and educational details.
– Sensitive Personal Information/ Protected Classification Characteristics under California or US Federal law, collected directly from you if you voluntarily reveal it in your Survey responses, such as your age, race, gender, sexual orientation, political opinions, health information, or religious or philosophical beliefs. Inferences based on any of the Personal Information collected.
We process the data that we collect in connection with the Studies in order to create a variety of market research insights for our clients. We will use your data for the purpose(s) for which it was collected or provided to us or as otherwise communicated at the point of collection. We do not use your Personal Data to advertise, promote, or market third-party goods or services to you. Additionally, we will not license, publish, or sell Personal Data collected from or about you.
Exercising Privacy Rights: In accordance with applicable law, you may have certain rights over your Personal Data. Though, because we do not sell or share Personal Data, nor do we permit its use for targeted advertising, we do not offer an ability to opt out/withdraw consent from such data processing. Otherwise, if you are interested in exercising one or more of your rights, please contact us at connect.privacy@nielseniq.com.
For our Website: Navigate to Your Privacy Rights to opt out/withdraw consent of the sale or sharing of Personal Information collected through our Website. You may also choose to enable a browser-based signal that automatically communicates your preferences, such as the Global Privacy Control (“GPC”). Where required, we will process the GPC signal as a request to opt out of sales through the Website.
Retention: We will retain your Personal Information for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfill the purposes described in this Notice, or to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. Our data retention period reflects several factors, including our relationship with users of our Services, the nature and sensitivity of Personal Information, and what is reasonably necessary and proportionate to provide and improve our Services.
- OUR PRIVACY COMMITMENT
NielsenIQ complies with all applicable privacy laws, including the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation. Indeed, it is crucial for us to keep NIQ participant data confidential in order to prevent any interference with participants that could affect their behavior and the accuracy of our Study data. We will not use your name, address, or any directly identifiable information you provide to us for direct marketing or sales purposes to you. We never share this identifiable information with marketers, nor do we permit our business customers to use it for direct marketing or sales to you.
- YOUR PARTICIPATION IN THIS STUDY
NIQ processes your Personal Information primarily on the basis of your consent and voluntary participation in this Study. By participating in this Study, you are contributing your data to a pool of data from which broad participant statistics are derived. These statistics are relied upon by a wide variety of other companies to set pricing, advertising, merchandising, and other key business decisions. You have legal rights with respect to your personal data, as described in “Your Choices And Your Legal Rights”, below.
- HOW WE COLLECT AND USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
We collect Personal Information (a) that you provide directly to us; (b) automatically when you take part in Surveys; and (c) from third-parties.
We process the Personal Information that we collect in connection with the Studies in order to create a variety of market research insights for our clients. Specifically, your demographic data, data relating to your behaviors and preferences, and other data that you provide to us allow us to help companies understand, amongst other things, how consumers like you may react to their products, the probability of success of a product in the market, whether there are opportunities to improve a product, and how to market a product and communicate effectively with consumers.
A. How We Use Information You Provide To Us
When we prepare reports and share insights with our clients, we use tools and methods that are designed to ensure that there is no reasonable possibility of identifying you or any other participants in our Studies. For example, we will combine data obtained from you (including data in the photos and/or videos that you have uploaded) with data obtained from other participants in order to produce reports with aggregated data from which you cannot be reasonably identified.
We also create reports and sales forecasts based upon modeled data. “Modeled data” are projections based on demographic and behavioral characteristics (like gender, age, and purchasing habits) that look at a sample group of people and then predict what people with similar characteristics or preferences would want to buy. We may also combine demographic and behavioral characteristics with other survey data and client marketing information to predict sales forecasts. This allows manufacturers, for instance, to identify the likely audience for a marketing campaign or the impact on sales of a change in pack.
We may also use your data to build AI synthetic panels, which is essentially a computer model trained on data from people like you in order to more efficiently understand consumers. These models help us test new ideas and see how different people might react to them. Your responses are incredibly valuable, and help us make sure companies are creating products and services that truly meet your needs. We’re using aggregated data to train the models, so your individual responses will remain completely private. Think of it like this: instead of having to ask a huge number of people the same question every time, we can use AI to simulate how different groups of people might respond to potential scenarios, then validate the best options through more traditional human-based surveys. This helps companies be more efficient and responsive to consumers’ needs, without replacing the need for real people in the research process.
If you are participating in a video research study, then the following applies:
We will share the individual videos you submit (and any accompanying Personal Information – primarily image and sound data) with the specific NielsenIQ client whose product you evaluated, and our client will use the videos (and any accompanying Personal Information) for its market research purposes. We will: (i) embed videos you provide to us in our report to the client, along with our insights and analyses, in order to highlight our insights and analyses; and (ii) provide the client with access to videos you submit. Providing the client with the videos you submit allows the client to observe how you respond to the product by seeing you react in the moment as you use the product, which may help uncover hidden risk(s) to the success of the product. Video recordings also capture and reveal to the client in image and sound what words alone cannot.
B. How We Use Information That We Automatically Collect
In certain cases, we (or our service providers/ processors) may automatically collect and use cookies or other similar technologies in connection with our Surveys. Session and persistent cookies, pixel tags, SDKs or scripts, web beacons or similar technologies may be used on some of our Website pages and HTML-formatted email messages to, among other things, manage Studies and to enhance your experience as a participant. We may also use these technologies for security, quality assurance, and fraud prevention purposes, to facilitate navigation, to display information more effectively, and to better serve you with more tailored information, as well as for site administration purposes, e.g., to gather statistical information about the usage of our websites in order to continually improve the design and functionality, to understand how users use our Websites, and to assist us with resolving questions regarding use of the Websites. To learn more about the use of cookies in general, please visit https://allaboutcookies.org/.
You can adjust the settings in your computer’s browser to reject cookies, or delete individual or all cookies on your computer by following the browser help file directions. Adjusting your settings to reject cookies or deleting cookies, however, may interfere with your use of some features on other websites and may impair your ability to participate in this Study or other Studies.
Where we use optional cookies, our online Survey platforms offer cookie settings. Additional information about our use of cookies and similar technologies can be found in the cookie notice of the online platform that we use for the Survey.
C. How We Use Information From Third-Party Sources
If you are invited to our Survey as a member of a Third-Party Panel, we typically do not receive your directly identifiable information, such as name or contact information; instead, we only receive an individual identification number which we use as a reference to the Third-Party Panel if there are questions regarding a specific questionnaire or responses, and information confirming your willingness to participate in Studies offered by companies like NIQ.
In some cases, we may commission third-parties to assist us with the sourcing of respondents and/or with the programming of our online questionnaires (rather than programming and hosting them ourselves), or we use third-party online platforms for live conversations, video, and/or audio recording. In these cases, respondents are subject to the notice on cookies and similar web technologies provided by the panel vendor with whom they are registered.
For some Surveys, we receive respondents’ contact information from the client on whose behalf we are conducting the Study. If we received your contact information from a client, the client remains in control of your data while NIQ acts as a service provider (processor) to the client for this contact information (and in special cases also for the data collected from respondents during these Studies) strictly pursuant to the client’s instructions.
Where applicable, we may combine data we obtain from you with data obtained from other sources and will use it only for the purposes described in this Privacy Notice.
- OTHER USES OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
We may use your data from all categories of sources above to contact you. When we contact you – by phone (including mobile phone), email, SMS, or postal mail (depending on what data you provide to us and/or the type of Study you participated in) – we usually do so to:
- respond to your inquiries or requests;
- validate or clarify answers you have provided;
- send you information regarding your participation in the Study;
- provide notice regarding changes to our terms, conditions, and policies; or
- invite you to participate in additional Studies.
In addition to the uses described above, we may use Personal Information for these additional commercial and business purposes to the extent permitted under applicable law:
- To manage the Study and assess your eligibility for participation in the Study and other Studies;
- To monitor, protect, and maintain the security of our Surveys and our business;
- To prevent, investigate, and act concerning: (i) misconduct, such as fraud, spam, harassment, intellectual property infringement, and risks to which we are exposed (e.g., crime and security risks) and other unlawful or criminal activity; (ii) security or technical issues; or (iii) network and information security issues, including managing and operating IT systems (of one or more entities within the NIQ Group) and maintaining the security of such systems;
- To carry out data analysis and audits, develop new products, produce predictive data models, improve our services, identify usage trends, and determine the effectiveness of our communications;
- To enforce our agreements, comply with applicable laws and regulations, respond to lawful requests for Personal Information, respond to subpoenas, court orders, or other legal process/requests and communications from law enforcement authorities or other government officials, and establish, exercise, and/or defend the legal rights of one or more entities within the NIQ Group;
- To facilitate the day-to-day operations and financial management of the NIQ Group and any corporate transactions carried out, such as corporate restructures, sales, and business transactions (e.g., a reorganization, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer, etc.) in which information held by us is among the assets transferred or is otherwise relevant to the transaction;
- To protect the rights, privacy, safety, property, operations, or health of you, one or more entities within the NIQ Group, or others;
- To fulfill any other purpose explained to you at the point of collection, or with your consent.
Just to remind you, we do not use your name, address, or any directly identifiable information you provide to us for direct marketing or sales purposes to you. We never share this identifiable information with marketers, nor do we permit our business customers to use it for direct marketing or sales to you.
5. HOW WE DISCLOSE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
We may disclose your Personal Information (in accordance with applicable law) for the purposes described in the “How We Collect and Use Your Personal Information” section above to our customers, service providers, and third-parties that provide advertising and analytics services.
- Our Customers and Other Market Research Companies. Where you have registered to become a member of a market research panel operated by another company (“Panel Owner”) and chosen to participate in an NIQ Survey, we may provide information to the Panel Owner for purposes of confirming whether or not you have taken our Survey. We may also be subject to audits by our clients or other third parties, in accordance with market research industry ethical guidelines. Additionally, as detailed above, if you take part in a Survey with video and/or audio recording, we will, with your prior consent, provide these recordings to the client for the Survey. In these cases, the clients are contractually bound to use your Personal Information only for internal market research purposes and to delete it when the purposes are fulfilled.
- Our Service Providers. We disclose your Personal Information to our service providers that provide business, professional, or technical support services to us, help us operate our business and the Surveys, or administer activities on our behalf, such as companies that provide website or application hosting; data analysis or processing; IT services; email; auditing services; data matching services; and recruitment, reward, incentive, sweepstakes, or market research product development purposes. These companies are contractually required to keep data that we disclose to them confidential and secure and are required to only use your Personal Information in connection with providing services to NIQ.
- Advertising, Measurement, and Analytics Providers. We may disclose Personal Information to third-parties to help create models that are used to deliver and evaluate our customers’ advertising campaigns. In addition, we make available information from our Surveys to allow our analytics providers to help us understand how consumers interact with our Studies and how to improve them. We also collect information about your interactions with emails we send to you, such as whether you forwarded the message or clicked through to our Website after opening it.
- Our Corporate Affiliates, which include our parent company and its subsidiaries listed here, the NIQ Group.
In certain circumstances, we may disclose each category of your Personal Information to:
- Governmental, Regulatory, and Public Authorities. We may disclose your Personal Information to government and law enforcement authorities to comply with legal or regulatory obligations or requests (including those outside your country of residence).
- Relevant Third-Parties as Part of a Corporate Transaction. In the event of a reorganization, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer, or other disposition of all or any portion of our business, assets, or stock (including in connection with a bankruptcy or similar proceeding), we may disclose or transfer your Personal Information to certain third-parties, such as the acquiring entity and its advisers.
- Other Third-Parties. We may disclose your Personal Information to other third-parties at your direction or with your consent. Additionally, we may disclose your Personal Information as necessary or appropriate to: (a) comply with applicable law; (b) enforce our terms and conditions; (c) protect our operations; (d) protect our rights, privacy, safety, or property, and/or those of you or others; and (e) allow us to pursue available remedies or limit damages that we may sustain.
In addition, we may disclose your Personal Information for other reasons that we will describe at the time of information collection or prior to disclosing your information.
When we disclose Personal Information, we take contractual, technical, and organizational measures that are designed to limit the recipients’ use to specific purposes that are consistent with this Notice and in accordance with applicable law. Remember, we do not permit our customers, service providers, partners, or affiliates to target or market to you directly.
To the extent permitted under applicable law, we may deidentify, anonymize, or aggregate Personal Information such that there is no reasonable possibility of re-identifying you from the data used. Such deidentified data will no longer be considered Personal Information. Once deidentified, we do not attempt to reidentify the data. We ensure it will not be reidentified by implementing strict technical and organizational measures to prevent reidentification and use contractual measures to ensure third parties adhere to the same non-reidentification commitments. Our use and disclosure of deidentified, anonymized, or aggregated information is not governed by this Notice.
6. TRANSFERS OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
Due to the international nature of our business, it may be necessary for us to transfer your Personal Information to other companies within the NIQ Group and to third-parties outside the jurisdiction in which you reside that may not have the level of data protection that you enjoy under your jurisdiction (“Third Countries”). This can, for example, result in impeded enforcement of individuals’ rights, a lack of control over further processing, and access by state authorities.
Within the NIQ Group, we have concluded an intra-group data transfer agreement with the relevant transfer mechanisms (standard contractual clauses of the European Commission) and additional safeguards to ensure an adequate level of protection for your Personal Information when it is transferred to Third Countries.
Insofar as we transfer your Personal Information to other recipients in Third Countries, we ensure that your Personal Information is protected by adequate safeguards recognized by your jurisdiction (for example, by concluding standard contractual clauses of the European Commission or by means of binding corporate rules of our business partners) and supplementary measures, as necessary. You can email us at connect.privacy@nielseniq.com with the subject line “Survey Data Transfers” to obtain a copy of transfer mechanisms.
7. AUTOMATED DECISION MAKING AND PROFILING
We may use automated processes to infer information about you and to create lookalike audiences that our customers may use for concept evaluation or interest-based advertising. Additionally, in order to balance the sociodemographic composition of the sample for online Surveys, we may use screening questions at the beginning of the Survey. In some cases, it may turn out that we already collected a sufficient number of responses from participants with your sociodemographic characteristics (for example, gender, age group, region, etc.). In this case, you may not be asked to complete the Survey and may not be eligible for any rewards or incentives that we may offer to participants.
To the extent that these activities constitute automated decision making or profiling, we take steps to do so in a fair and non-discriminatory manner. We do not process your Personal Information for profiling that produces a legal or similarly significant effect, such as a decision to offer or decline your request for employment.
8. DATA AUTHORIZATIONS AND RESTRICTIONS
Your Data Authorizations. You authorize us to access and process your Personal Information by agreeing to this Notice and providing any necessary consent. You are not obligated to provide your Personal Information and can opt out/withdraw consent to our processing at any time. Without access to your Personal Information, we may not be able to provide the full range of our services or respond to your inquiries effectively.
- PRIVACY RIGHTS and choices
IMPORTANT:
If you participated in an NIQ Survey as a member of a Third-Party Panel, we will most likely be unable to identify you by your name or email address when you send us a message because we do not typically receive your identifying information from the Third-Party Panel. Therefore, to exercise your privacy rights in relation to Survey data you provided, we recommend that you contact your panel provider who can then forward us your request in a pseudonymized form by reference to the individual identification number assigned to your Survey responses, which will enable us to find and action your Survey data in accordance with your rights.
The NIQ company identified at the beginning of the Survey is the controller of Personal Information collected from or about you. Participation in our Studies is always voluntary, meaning that you can choose whether or not to provide any of the data requested and withdraw from the Study that you are participating in at any time. If you cease participation, we will continue to process the data we collected during the time you were a participant. In accordance with applicable law (and subject to certain exceptions), you may have certain rights in relation to your Personal Information, including the right to:
- Access your Personal Information (including a copy in a portable format). You may have the right to request a privacy report detailing the Personal Information we maintain about you and the purposes for doing so, unless your request proves impossible or would involve disproportionate effort to fulfill. Under certain conditions, you may request that we transfer your Personal Information to another organization, or directly to you, but we may not be required to respond to your requests “to know” or access specific pieces of Personal Information more than twice in any 12-month period.
- Request a List of Third Parties with whom we have shared your Personal Information, though we are not required to provide the names of NIQ Group customers or other trade secrets. Remember, we will never license, publish, or sell Personal Information collected from or about you.
- Correct or Rectify inaccurate Personal Information that we maintain about you, subject to appropriate verification.
- Delete or Erase the Personal Information that we maintain about you, subject to certain exceptions. We may be unable to delete your information without also deleting your Survey account.
- Restrict or Limit Processing of the Personal Information that we maintain about you, under certain conditions. This includes a right to restrict the use or disclosure of your Sensitive Personal Information.
- Object to Processing of the Personal Information that we maintain about you based on our legitimate interest, under certain conditions. We will no longer process your Personal Information unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override your interests or for the establishment, exercise, or defense of legal claims.
- Withdraw Consent at any time where we rely on consent as the legal basis, with effect for the future, by contacting us using the contact information below.
- Appeal or Lodge a Complaint in the event of a suspected infringement of applicable data protection laws, you may appeal our decision directly with us or lodge a complaint with your (US) state’s Attorney General or with a supervisory authority.
Because we do not sell or share Personal Data, nor do we permit its use for targeted advertising, we do not offer an ability to opt out/withdraw consent from such data processing.
We empower and support the exercise of your rights. At any time, you may request or assert any of the rights listed above by selecting Your Privacy Rights from our website or by emailing us at connect.privacy@.nielseniq.com.
We may take steps to confirm your identity before responding to your request by asking you a series of questions about your previous interactions with us. We will work to respond within applicable legal deadlines, and let you know if we need additional time. If you believe there has been a violation of your privacy rights, please contact us or the supervisory authority. We may decline a request (other than an opt-out request) if we are unable to confirm your identity (or an agent’s authority to make the request) or confirm the Personal Information we maintain relates to you.
We will not discriminate against you if you decide to exercise your privacy rights.
- Legal Bases for Processing Personal Information and Storage Periods
| Personal Information Categories | Processing Purposes | Legal Basis of the Processing | Storage Periods or Rules |
| Identification Information such as your name, email address, phone number, home address, shipping address Identifiers such as unique identification numbers or reference codes, our automatic collection of device identifiers such as IP address, and identifiers and other information that are stored in cookies and similar technologies Location Information such as your city and state of residence, and based on the IP address assigned to the device that you use to access our Surveys | Providing access to, operating, improving, administering, and ensuring compliance with the terms of our Websites and Surveys Promoting and maintaining the security of our Websites and Surveys, verifying and investigating activity, protecting our rights and the rights of others Prevent, investigate, take action regarding, or provide notice of fraud; unlawful/criminal activity, and other misconduct; security/technical issues; or unauthorized access to/use of Personal Data, the Studies, or our data systems Protecting our legal rights and interests, complying with law, responding to subpoenas, court orders, or other legal process/requests and communications from law enforcement authorities or other government officials To derive demographic information and relative geographies for Studies, To personalize the Studies, for example, by providing the Survey in your local language To prepare aggregated statistics for our clients, carry out data analysis and audits, develop new products, produce predictive data models, improve our services, identify usage trends, and determine the effectiveness of our communications For research and quality assurance purposes, including for internal reporting and business modelling purposes. We may share selected data back with the Third-Party Panel that invited you to the Survey in case of concerns regarding the truthfulness, seriousness or authenticity of the information. To pseudonymize and deidentify your Survey Information Identification Information specifically: To provide you with information or respond to your enquiries, To manage compensation for Surveys, To re-contact you for a follow-up or for quality assurance purposes To deliver test products to your home or, in case of in-home interviews, to visit you at home, in which case your address may also be shared with a limited number of client representatives. | Your consent for any information you share with us directly Our legitimate interest in running and protecting our business, and providing the Survey to you Legal Necessity to comply with legal obligations to which NIQ may be subject | Stored until our client or Third-Party Panel requests the deletion of your Personal Information, or you request the deletion of your Personal Information, subject to compliance requirements |
| Your Survey Responses, including: Sociodemographic/ Biographical Information such as your age group, gender, gender identification, occupational status and educational level, income category, the country and region you live in and eventually others Behaviors such as your consumption habits, when, why, or how you do things, such as how frequently you shop for groceries or use your computer, TV, or the Internet Preferences such as your attitudes and opinions to certain products and brands and the choices you make, such as which breakfast cereals you buy, which stations you listen to or watch, or the websites that you visit Commercial and Financial Information such as information about products or services you purchased, obtained, or considered, or other purchasing or consuming histories or tendencies, Bank details, payment information, credit history | We process your Survey data to prepare aggregated statistics for our clients, carry out data analysis and audits, develop new products, produce predictive data models, improve our services, identify usage trends, and determine the effectiveness of our communications Survey data may also be used by us for research and quality assurance purposes. We may share back selected Survey data back with the Third-Party Panel that invited you to the Survey in case of concerns regarding the truthfulness, seriousness or authenticity of the information To derive demographic information and relative geographies for Studies To produce deidentified or aggregated reports, including those relating to marketing, retail sales measurement and analysis, product advertising and marketing strategies and tools, consumer preferences and demands, product innovation and development, consumers’ purchasing decisions, histories and behaviors, competitor and market analysis, and supply chain management To create pseudonymized datasets about your Survey responses for analytics, insights, data product quality, improvement, and development, and market dynamics and/or research | Your consent for any information you share with us directly. As we typically process this type of data under an identification number assigned by your Third-Party Panel, it is “pseudonymous data”, and we ask your consent to process your answers. Our legitimate interest in running and protecting our business, and providing the Survey to you Legal Necessity to comply with legal obligations to which NIQ may be subject | Your pseudonymized Personal Information is stored and processed until you either opt out of the panel, ask us to stop processing it, delete your account, request the deletion of your Personal Information, or our client or Third-Party Panel requests the deletion of your Personal Information, subject to compliance requirements. Certain Survey responses may be aggregated, anonymized, or deidentified by removing your identifying information. Such aggregated, anonymized, or deidentified data may be stored indefinitely, as it is not Personal Information governed by this Notice. |
| Social Media Profile Information such ascertain profile information stored in your social media platform account should you agree to participate in a Study through a third-party service such as Facebook or Twitter | To analyze panelist interactions for improving the Surveys and panelist experience To ensure compatibility and improve Survey functionality | Your consent when registering for a Survey through a social media recruitment effort | Stored until you delete your account, our client requests the deletion of your Personal Information, or you request the deletion of your Personal Information, subject to compliance requirements |
| Special Category Data if you voluntarily reveal it in your Survey responses, such as your racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, and the processing of 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, age, gender. Inferences based on any of the Personal Information collected. Additional Sensitive Information such as Professional or Employment-related Information or Education Information, collected directly from you if you voluntarily reveal it in your Survey responses, such as your occupation, income range, and educational details. | We only ask for such sensitive information that is necessary for the purposes of the Survey and do not use such information for any other purposes. | We will always ask your explicit consent to the processing of Sensitive Personal Information. | Stored only as long as needed for its intended purposes |
| Sensory Information/ Audio, Electronic, Visual, or Similar Interaction Data collected directly from you if you are participating in an audio/video taped focus group or in-person or online interview or similar, or any content or material you choose to submit, upload, or transmit to NIQ such as photos, videos, images, or the likeliness of the individual submitting the content in connection with your participation in a Survey In particular cases, we may ask you to provide photos or video and audio recordings of you interacting with certain products or services. For some studies, we may offer you speech input as an alternative to keyboard input for convenience and will record and automatically transcribe your answers accordingly. | We use photos and recordings only for market research analytics purposes; in particular NOT for purposes of using biometric data to identify individuals. We may share the individual videos you submit (and any accompanying personal data – primarily image and sound data) with the specific NielsenIQ client who commissioned the Survey, and our client may use the videos (and any accompanying personal data) for its market research purposes. We may: (i) embed videos you provide to us in our report to the client, along with our insights and analyses, in order to highlight our insights and analyses; and (ii) provide the client with access to videos you submit. Providing the client with the videos you submit allows the client to observe how you respond to the product by seeing you react in the moment as you use the product, which may help uncover hidden risk(s) to the success of the product. Video recordings also capture and reveal to the client in image and sound what words alone cannot. | We obtain your consent for the processing of photos and recordings. Our legitimate interest in maintaining the high quality of our Survey responses | Stored only as long as needed for its intended purposes |
| Online Identifiers & Tracking Data collected in the background during online Surveys which may include: Internet Protocol (IP) address of your deviceType and version of operating system and web browser used Mobile device identifiers like MAC, IMEI or MAID Mouse clicks and movement Browsing history and site use data (such as clicks, page visits and time spent) Device specifications Time spent for each question and questionnaire completion Data collected through cookies and similar technologies, according to our cookie notice on the respective online Survey platform | We collect this data for information security purposes and for the prevention of interruptions to our services, as well as the detection and prevention of fraud and other criminal activity. Operating our site, ensuring compatibility and that content from our site is presented effectively, according to the device and location you are accessing it from, and improving Survey functionality. Analyzing our site usage and statistical data about users browsing actions and their patterns to improve our site or detect fraudulent behavior. | We process logging data and use strictly necessary cookies for purposes of our legitimate interests as a market research company and a website operator, to ensure that our site is presented to you in the most effective way possible and to detect fraudulent behavior We obtain your consent for the usage of optional cookies. | Stored only as long as needed for its intended purposes |
9. AUTHORIZED AGENT REQUESTS
Only you, or someone legally authorized to act on your behalf, may submit a request related to your Personal Information.
In accordance with applicable law, you may authorize someone to make a privacy rights request on your behalf (an “Authorized Agent”). To confirm their authority, Authorized Agents may need to demonstrate that you’ve authorized them to act on your behalf. Authorization must be done in writing and signed, and the writing must identify the agent and explain what request they are authorized to make. Your Authorized Agent must include a copy of this writing or a copy of a valid power of attorney with the request. The NIQ Group retains the right to request confirmation directly from you, confirming that the agent is authorized to make such a request, or to request additional information that is necessary to identify you.
Submit Authorized Agent requests at Your Privacy Rights uploading the authorization documentation or submit the complete request with attachments via email to connect.privacy@nielseniq.com with the subject line “Survey Respondent Authorized Agent.”
10. DATA SECURITY AND EXTERNAL LINKS
We maintain a comprehensive information security program with administrative, physical, and technical safeguards to maintain the confidentiality, integrity, and accessibility of your information. However, as no transmission of information over the internet is absolutely secure, we cannot guarantee the safety of your information.
Our Surveys may have links to third-party sites and services, which may have privacy policies that differ from our own. We are not responsible for the practices of these third-party sites and services. We encourage you to review their privacy information to learn more about their practices.
11. PERSONAL INFORMATION OF CHILDREN
We understand the importance of protecting minors’ privacy, and it is our policy to never knowingly collect or maintain Personal Information about anyone under the age of 18 (subject to local jurisdictional age differences) without first obtaining consent from a parent or guardian. For offline Surveys with children, we adhere to the age thresholds for parental consent according to applicable codes of conduct for the market research industry. If our Survey seeks to study children and we have obtained consent from a parent or guardian, minor children may participate in some Studies.
All of the provisions of this Privacy Notice apply to data about children of any age (up to 18), if data collection about them has been authorized by a parent or guardian. If we become aware that we have collected or received Personal Information from a child without appropriate parental consent, we will delete the Personal Information or take other steps to comply with applicable law. We do not knowingly sell or share information about individuals under the age of 18.
12. REVISIONS TO THIS PRIVACY NOTICE
| Privacy Rights Webform | Your Privacy Rights |
| connect.privacy@nielseniq.com | |
| Data Controller | The NIQ Group member as identified in the Survey or in the invitation to the Survey |
| U.S. Postal Mail | NielsenIQ, 200 W Jackson Blvd, Chicago, IL 60606, USA, Attn: Legal Dept. |
| Outside U.S. Postal Mail | GfK – an NIQ Company, Team Privacy, Product & AI Dev, Sophie-Germain-Str. 3-5, 90443 Nuremberg, Germany |
| Data Protection Officer | niq@hewardmills.com Attn: NIQ Strategic Analytics & Insights |