WHO IS WATCHING YOU?
Privacy could be defined as having the ability to control what others know about you. In the days before the World Wide Web, this definition covered most situations. If you didn’t want the intimate details of your life or business available for public access, you kept your papers in a safe place and kept your mouth shut about your secrets.
The old controls don’t work anymore. The public-access landscape has been dramatically altered by advances in technology and national security issues. The details of your life are now open to unprecedented access.
Businesses around the globe are doing all they can to protect themselves. They use firewalls and sophisticated intrusion-detection systems to block intruders and antivirus software to guard information assets.
Major revisions are being made in privacy law and technology policies to ensure that the institutions safeguarding your personal information, such as medical and banking records, do their best as well.
• The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act mandates that a covered entity (a hospital or health system) must obtain informed consent as a normal course of treatment.
• The Federal Communications Commission Customer Privacy Rule requires notice and an opt-in for any non-telecom research, but an opt-out for customer service related surveys.
• The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (Consumer Financial Information) requires notice and an opt-out provision for survey research.
• The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) requires verifiable parental consent and an opt-in provision for survey research.
• The European Union Directive on Data Protection is currently under review and revision, with a proposal that personal information may not be transferred to countries without adequate privacy protection.
SRA handles personal information with the same high level of confidentiality. Access to protected information is permitted only to those persons whose job function requires use of the data.
All SRA employees, consultants and business associates are required to sign and abide by a stringent confidentiality agreement. We identify all personal information collected, stored and compiled as confidential data that may not be accessed except in the performance of job duties or contractual obligations on behalf of our clients.
For clients who use our web survey services, the only access permitted to personal information is in the performance of contractual obligations. The entire system is secured using 128-bit data encryption and user/password security measures. Unauthorized access to system data is virtually impossible due to the security measures in place.
Laws, policies, software, and procedures will help protect privacy. The rest of the equation comes down to trust – something SRA is very serious about. We’re committed to a corporate policy that protects the privacy of all our clients and survey respondents. ‡
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