Yorkshire Water AT Privacy Notice
Qa Research Ltd is a Market and Social Research Company based in the UK.
Our company registration is 3186539 and our registered address is:
Mill House, North Street, York, YO1 6JD.
Customer acceptability testing of the PR19 Business Plan for Yorkshire Water
Thank you for agreeing to take part in this research.
This leaflet contains information relevant to this research project that has to be made available to you in order to comply with data protection legislation (Privacy Information Notice). It also includes information Qa Research must give you as a member (Company Partner) of the Market Research Society Society (MRS).
About this research
Qa Research is doing research with customers of Yorkshire Water to test the acceptability of Yorkshire Water’s proposed business plan for 2020-2025. The research findings will either show that the proposed business plan is acceptable to the majority of customers or provide evidence to help re-write the plan to make it acceptable.
The joint data controllers for this research project are Yorkshire Water and Qa Research – see ‘Contact’ below.
The legal basis for this research is ‘public task’ (performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller – Yorkshire Water). All water companies are tasked by Ofwat (regulator of the water sector in England and Wales) to test the acceptability of their business plans with customers.
This research asks about your business’s views towards Yorkshire Water and it’s draft business plan. You have been asked to complete this interview because you are able to answer questions on behalf of your business. You will not be asked to provide any personal details about yourself as an essential part of completing the interview, although details such as your name and role in the business may be mentioned as part of your dialogue with the interviewer. Additionally, you may be asked to give your name and contact details for quality control purposes. You do not have to give any of these details if you do not want to.
Taking part in this research is voluntary and you have the right to withdraw from the research at any time – see ‘Your rights’ below.
This research will collect the views of non-household customers using a telephone survey.
How your data will be used
For research purposes:
This research is confidential. This means that your business’s identity will only be accessed by Qa Research for the purposes of this research project. Yorkshire Water will not know you have taken part and will only receive aggregated data (which means your data will be mixed in with the views of many other businesses) and research reports will only contain anonymous data, (which means your business will not be named, nor identifiable from any answers you gave).
For quality control purposes:
We always like to ensure that people who take part in our research have had a good experience. We check the work of our interviewers and recruiters to ensure they are following the MRS Code of Conduct, and to comply with the requirements of ISO 20252, the International Standard for Market and Social Research, to which Qa Research is registered. Qa Research is the data controller for personal data collected for this purpose, and the lawful basis for using your data in this way is our legitimate interest. Access to personal data collected and used for quality control purposes is strictly controlled and limited to Qa Research employees on a need to know basis. Data collected for quality control purposes will not be passed on to Yorkshire Water or any third party. We only keep your data for as long as we need it.
If you have been contacted by phone, all calls will be recorded from the moment the call is connected. Once we have explained our reason for calling you (to carry out research) and you have expressed an interest in taking part, we ask for your consent to us recording the rest of the call. We will delete your data within 6 months of the end of the research project.
How we keep your information safe
Qa Research uses a wide range of technology to ensure that any personal data we hold is processed, stored and transferred in a secure way. This includes encryption, password protection and limiting access to Personal Data to key staff only. We hold Cyber Essentials accreditation and we regularly review our processes, hardware, software and policies to ensure we maintain Personal Data securely.
Your data will not be transferred to a country outside of the EU.
Your rights
Under the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), individuals have rights over their personal data and Data Controllers have a responsibility to fulfil these rights – see ‘Contact’ below. Your rights include;
- Withdrawal of consent – you have a right to withdraw from the research at any time. Any personal data will then be deleted from any research study or database in which you are identifiable
- Access to personal data – a right to access personal data that is held by Qa Research
- Amendment to personal data – a right to have any personal data held about you amended
- Erase personal data (‘right to be forgotten’) – a right to have personal data erased
- Object to processing – a right to object to processing in certain circumstances
- Restrict processing – a right to restrict the processing of personal data in certain circumstances. This means that an individual can limit the ways that an organisation uses their data. It is different to requesting the erasure of personal data
You have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) if you are unhappy with the way Qa Research Ltd processes your personal data. The ICO can be contacted at ico.org.uk or by calling 0303 123 1113.
Contact
If you have further questions about this research project
If you took part in a telephone interview
Call our free phone research hotline 0800 9809030
To fulfill your rights under GDPR (including to make a Subject Access Request) please contact Qa Research by email (dpo@qaresearch.co.uk) or by phone (01904 632039) or by post to Data Protection Officer, Mill House, North Street, York, YO1 6JD). We will respond to your request within legal time limits and in line with current data protection legislation. Normally, we will not charge for the fulfilment of your rights and would only do so when legally entitled to.
Qa Research is a Market Research Society (MRS) Company Partner
The MRS is the professional body for market and social researchers. All its members (and all Qa Research employees) are bound by the MRS Code of Conduct which sets professional standards for research and guarantees fair treatment for people interviewed.
To check the credentials of any company that approaches you and asks you to take part in research, call the MRS Freephone Service, available seven days a week, 9am to 11pm, on: Free phone: 0800 975 9596
If you have any concerns about the way this interview was conducted, or would like information on the market and social research industry, please contact the Market Research Society:
Tel: 020 7490 4911 Email: codeline@mrs.org.uk Post: 15 Northburgh Street, London, EC1V 0JR
Or go to: www.mrs.org.uk
Further information on Privacy
Qa Research’s Privacy Policy can be found at https://qaresearch.co.uk/about-us/privacy-policy/
See the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) website for information on data protection and privacy: https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/
