ESOMAR and the Global Research Business Network (GRBN) announce the release of two new complementary guidelines that further strengthen ethical standard framework to be used by their respective memberships: Primary Data Collection and Duty of Care.
The documents provide essential support to research, insight and data analytics practitioners and the organisations that work with them to best navigate important issues they encounter in their daily lives. The new guidance aims to better future proof ethical and professional practice at a time when the collection and use of data continues to accelerate, facilitated by new technologies. The guidance reinforces the importance of maintaining trust with participants and support practitioners to comply with existing and emerging legislation.
The Primary Data Collection guideline guides practitioners and organisations when they collect data directly from or about a data subject for the purpose of their data, research and insights projects. The Duty of Care guidance reminds practitioners and organisations of their responsibilities to the privacy and well-being of their data subjects and outlines the key expectations taking into account established ethical and legal requirements.
Ethics
Primary Data Collection describes the ethical responsibilities of researchers, regardless of the type of organisation in which they work, when engaged in primary data collection, that is, when collecting data from or about a data subject for the purpose of research. It includes quantitative and qualitative methods that involve direct questioning of data subjects, but also methods of passive data collection in which the researcher observes, measures or records an individual’s actions or behaviour.
Responsibility
Duty of Care aims to advise researchers and those who do research on behalf of clients about their responsibility to protect the privacy and well-being of data subjects who participate in research or whose data is processed for a research purpose. It is also designed to provide guidance for those who commission research to ensure that they are fully aware of their responsibilities and to set expectations about what is and is not possible given established ethical and legal requirements.