Privacy
Respondent Privacy Notice of Watermelon Research, in this notice, “we”, “our”, or “us” refer to Watermelon Research Ltd. A market research agency of Suite 101, 59 Marlborough Street, Surry Hills, NSW 2010, Australia.
Watermelon Research are part of the VCCP Group, with offices worldwide.
If you are reading this notice you have either already been contacted and have taken part in a market research survey or you have been invited to take part, and before you participate you would like to know more about us, your privacy rights under The Privacy Act 1988 and relevant laws, the security of any information we hold about you and how we will use or process your information.
Collection Methods
We collect research data using any of the below methods;
Email
Online Web Page
Panel or focus group
Telephone*
*We will present different CLIs (Caller Line Identification) for different projects – a number will always be made available, we will never withhold our number.
Who We Are
Watermelon Research are an independent market research agency based in Sydney, NSW. Watermelon is part of the VCCP Partnership owned by Chime Communications Limited.
Verification
You can verify that we are a legitimate research company by visiting the The Research Society website and searching the member directory: Company Directory (researchsociety.com.au)
Re-contact
As part of our quality control processes and for adherence to codes of conduct, we may need to re-contact respondents for verification purposes by either telephone or e-mail , to check that the survey was conducted in a compliant manner and to ensure integrity of the survey results. This is normally with respondents from focus groups and takes place within a week of the initial participation, it would be carried out by a member of our quality team. Once we have completed this quality control check, your personal details will be securely deleted.
Selling
If you take part in a survey, we will never attempt to sell you anything, nor would we ever pass on your details to a third party.
How did we get your contact details?
As a Data Processor we work under instruction from our clients (known as the data controller) and your contact details would have been passed to us by them because you have used a product or service of theirs. These details are shared using encrypted methods to ensure safe transit, you can ask us to remove these details at any time under your rights explained in the ‘Your rights’ section below. You can also contact the client who provided these directly.
We also conduct research using respondent panels where members have purposely agreed to take part in surveys or groups.
Processing Your Information
Privacy law lays out the lawful basis for which processing personal data can be legally carried out. Our legal basis for processing personal information is agreed with our clients beforehand which enables Watermelon to carry out market research, this is normally either express or implied consent. We will always provide you with the freedom to withdraw any consent and stop processing your information should you request it.
Your information is only processed by us and the client for the purposes of research and statistical analysis.
Confidentiality
We will treat all responses that you give with the utmost confidentiality, in some situations we may ask you if you would like your responses to be attributed to you specifically (this is normally to help the client respond or address any of responses where necessary) where this might be the case we will only do this with your consent, you also have the right to refuse this option.
At no point will any of the information that you have provided be utilised for any other purpose other than that of research.
You should not incur any charges for taking part in a survey and all responses are gathered in adherence with the Research Society – Code of Professional Behaviour: Code of Professional Behaviour (researchsociety.com.au)
Children
We will always gain prior parental consent before conducting any research surveys with children below the age of 15.
Your rights
Under the Privacy Act 1988 there are 13 principles that govern standards, rights and obligations around usage, accountability, integrity and rights for individuals.
You can view these principles and your rights in full here: Australian Privacy Principles quick reference - Home (oaic.gov.au)
You have the right to ask us to stop processing your information – to not participate in the research survey and not be contacted again, we would need to retain your email address to ensure that you are never contacted again. No other identifying information is ever stored within this suppression list.
If you would like to exercise any of these rights, you can do so by replying from the survey invitation email or by contacting our Chief Information Officer via the following;
Email: CIO@watermelonexperience.com.au
Post: The Chief Information Officer,
Watermelon Research
Suite 101, 59 Marlborough StreetSurry Hills
Sydney, NSW 2010
Australia
Transfer of data
Data is normally processed within Australia, in some instances we may need to use the services of a third party provider based in Europe, any system we use for this is tested, secured and compliant with relevant data protection laws. This process is normally for utilisation of data analysis tool.
Security of Information
We have taken appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure the security of our systems, services, protecting the integrity and accuracy of information processed or stored within those systems.
We only allow authorised employees to access specific data and always operate a least privilege policy. We use the strongest encryption methodologies to further protect information and reduce any risks with handling, thus ensuring that sufficient safeguards are in place.
To further ensure that our security management systems are fit for purpose, we are independently audited. Our cloud systems are certified to industry standards such as:
ISO27001:2013 – Information Security Management
Cyber Essentials
SOC I, II & III
The survey platforms are also independently audited on an annual basis, the underlying code is also tested at the same time with both receiving A grade security ratings.
Where we use electronic systems to collect survey responses, these systems are independently security and code tested to ensure maximum security safeguards are present and maintained.
Survey Collection and Storage
Depending on the type of study and the method of collection, the time that it takes to complete a survey can vary and be anywhere from 5 – 60 minutes, this time period could also fluctuate based on the length of any responses you provide. In all cases we will give you an estimate of the time it will take to complete the process.
All data collection is carried out using systems that are based within Australia and no data will be transferred outside of the country. Only selected and authorised employees can access the data for analysis and quality purposes, the end client would normally have access to the finalised survey data sets.
We will not keep your data for any longer than is absolutely necessary, the normal retention period is six months from project completion. We will never use your data to send unsolicited mail, nor would we pass on your email address for the same.
Cookies & IP Tracking Information
Watermelon uses technology known as Software as a Service (SaaS) to host the research surveys that we send out to respondents. These surveys are constructed specifically to ask all the questions that we would need to have answered by any participants for each study. This ensures that we are gathering only the agreed and minimum information needed on behalf of the Data Controller (Client) and due to this method of collection we do not need, use, or rely on any cookie information or respondent IP addresses to carry out this work.
Any survey session cookies are dropped, and no information relay occurs, no data analysis is carried out using cookies, nor can anyone be identified from cookie data.
We do not track, trace, or store any IP address information for any respondents that agree to complete surveys and connect to the SaaS platform.
Respondents have the right to refuse to complete a survey at any time along with their other rights under privacy laws.
Incentives
Some types of survey could have an incentive offered (such as a shopping voucher or small payment) to participate, in most circumstance these incentives will be handled by us. In the case where the client will handle these incentives, we will fully inform you first.
Further Information
We have been in the market research industry for many years, winning various awards and working with some of the world’s leading brands within that time. We hope that you have found this notice useful and we will happily respond to any requests or issues that you have.
You can find more information from the Research Society website: Home (researchsociety.com.au)
You have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner: Home - Home (oaic.gov.au)
This notice was updated in October 2024, and will also be updated from time to time as required.