Who are we?
We are Philomath Research, a market research company based in India with offices in US and UK. You can know more about us by visiting our website www.philomathresearch.com
We are also an online data collection company focused on providing high quality to its clients who are various business sectors, including other market research agencies and other global and corporate clients of all sizes. We also build and maintain online consumer panels, providing real time digital consumer insights to our clients via market research surveys.
What is the purpose of this privacy policy and our commitment to you?
We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy policy aims to give you information on how we collect and process your personal data through your use of our site (www.philomathresearch.com) “sites” including any data you may provide through these sites when signing up to our panel.
These sites are not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect any data relating to children
What personal data we collect about you?
Information you give us: This is the information that you give us by filling in forms when signing up to our panel. It includes information you provide when you register to use our sites or services, correspond with us with email or when you report a problem with our site.
Information we collect about you: Our site may automatically collect the following information:
Technical Data: including the internet protocol (IP) address used to connect to the internet, browser type and version, time zone setting, operating system and platforms.
Information about the visit: including the full uniform resource locators (URL), pages you viewed, page response times, errors you might have faced and method used to browse away from the site.
We do not collect any Special Category Personal Data about you
Where we need to collect personal data by law or under other terms of a contract we have with you and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may no be to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for e.g. your email for sending you survey invitations)
Personal Data: means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does does not include data which has been anonymized.
Identity Data: name (includes first and last names), date of birth, marital status, gender, panelist id and username.
Contact Data: email address and zip code.
Profile Data: includes your username and password, your interests, feedbacks and survey responses (if answered on a survey deployed by Philomath research)
Technical Data: includes internet protocol, login data, browser type and version, time zone, operating system and platforms
How do we collect your personal data?
Direct Interactions: You may give us your identity data and contact data by filling out in forms or by corresponding with us through phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:
Apply for our services or products
Enter your contact or identity data
Create an account on our site
Request information to be sent to you
Enter a survey
Give us feedback
Automated technology data: As you interact with our site, we may automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and platforms. This data is collected by use of cookies or other similar technologies.
Third Parties or Publically Available Sources: We may receive personal data about you from various third party sources and public sources as below:
Analytics providers like Google, based outside and inside the EU
Contact Data, Financial Data and Transaction Data from providers of technical payment and delivery outside the EU
• Identity and Contact Data from data brokers and aggregators based inside or outside the EU (such as Zoon Info)
Publically available identity and contact data
How do we use your personal data?
We only use your personal data when the law allows us to do so. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:
Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. • Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation
This includes to register you as a panellist, to process or deliver your incentive or honorarium, manage payments, collect and recover money owed to us, notifying changes to our privacy policy, asking you to leave or take a survey, to enable you to partake in a prize draw, competition or complete a survey, to administer and protect our business and website, to process your complaints and feedback and to send marketing material to you.
Opting Out:
You can ask us to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by following the unsubscribe links on any marketing sent to you. Where you opt out of receiving these messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to us a result of transactions other than marketing messages or an ongoing contract.
Change of Purpose:
We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which it is collected, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal data for unrelated purposes, we will notify you and explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.
We may also be required to process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this required or permitted by law.
Disclosure of your Personal Data:
We may have to share your personal data with External Third parties based in certain countries throughout the world, including countries that are not recognized as providing equivalent protection such as:
Service Providers acting as processors, if any, who provide us with IT and system admin services.
Professional advisers acting as processors or joint controllers, including bankers, lawyers, auditors and insurers who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services.
Tax Authorities, regulators, and other other authorities, acting as processors or joint controllers who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.
Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy policy.
We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.
What Cookies do we use on our sites?
We use site cookies to distinguish you from other users when you are taking a survey. Cookies also help us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our sites and they also help to improve our sites. These cookies expire when your browsing session ends.
International transfers
From time to time your personal data is transferred from us to a country that has not been recognised as providing equivalent protection. We have put in place transfer agreements using the standard model contracts for the transfer of personal data to third countries as decreed by the European Commission.
What security measures do we undertake to protect your personal data?
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.
What are our data retention and destruction policies?
We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.
To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.
If you are a citizen or resident of the EEA, or we are processing your personal data in the EEA, in some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see the section entitled Your legal rights if you are in the EEA below for further information.
Your legal rights if you are in the EEA
If you are a EEA citizen or resident, you have the right to:
Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data's accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.
If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us by emailing to the appropriate email address in the Contact below.
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.
What we may need from you
We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.
Time limit to respond
We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.
What are the legal bases we rely on when using your personal data?
The law on data protection in the EEA sets out a number of different reasons for which a company that is processing personal data may collect and process such personal data, including:
Consent - Generally we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data other than in relation to sending third party direct marketing communications to you via email or text message. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by emailing to the appropriate email address in the Contact below
Legitimate Interest means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service/product and the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by emailing to the appropriate email address in the Contact below.
Performance of Contract means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.
Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject to.
Changes to our privacy policy
Any changes we make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page, do please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy.
Contact us at contactus@philomathresearch.com