Who are we?

Research Now Pty Ltd ACN 114 897 531 ABN 12 114 897 531(Research Now and 'we') is a wholly owned subsidiary of Research Now Ltd, a company incorporated in the United Kingdom. Other related companies of Research Now include e-Rewards, Inc. (a US Company), e-Rewards Europe Limited (a UK Company), Research Now, Inc. (a US Company), Research Now Limited (a UK company), The Mobile Panel Ltd., The Mobile Channel Ltd., Research Now Pty Ltd. (an Australian Company), Research Now Inc. (a Canadian Company), Research Now Consulting Co. Ltd (a Chinese company), Research Now Technology EPE (a Greek Company), Research Now GmbH (a German Company), Research Now PTE  LTD (a Singaporian Company), Research Now Pty Limited (a New Zealand company), Research Now Spain S.L. (a Spanish company) and Research Now SARL (a French Company) (together "Research Now") operate the Valued Opinions websites. This Privacy Policy governs the website located at www.valuedopinions.com.au.

 
What do we do?

Research Now conducts market research in Australia using online surveys through the 'Valued Opinions' website (http://www.valuedopinions.com.au) in relation to existing products and services, advertising campaigns, new product concepts, in fact almost anything. This information is provided in an aggregated and de-identified form to companies all over the world to help them better improve their product or service offerings.

Our commitment to protecting your privacy?

In this Privacy Statement, 'personal information' means information or an opinion about any individual, whether true or not, and whether recorded in a material form or not, whose identity is apparent or can reasonably be ascertained from the information or opinion. Research Now will observe the National Privacy Principles (NPPs) under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) when it deals with your personal information. We value our panel members and recognise their right to keep their personal information private. This statement discloses our information collecting handling and disclosure practices in Australia and for the purposes of NPP 5.1.

How we collect and use your personal information?

We collect personal information from you when you communicate with us by any media. This includes whenever you complete a survey, send us an email, call us or send us a letter. The information we collect about you includes information about your views in respect of the subject matter of our surveys together with demographic information. This may include sensitive information within the meaning of the Privacy Act (Cth) such as:

• your racial or ethnic origin
• your political opinions
• your physical or mental health or condition
• your sexual life
• your criminal history, including any offences you have committed or are alleged to have committed and any proceedings that you have faced in respect of that, of
• your membership of any trade unions or professional associations
• but see our comments below in respect of anonymisation (de-identification) of the survey information that we collect.

Why we collect personal information

We collect personal information for the following purposes:

• to keep you informed and obtain your views of Research Now's products, services and activities
• the creation of a database of individuals willing to take part in research and surveys
• evaluating which individuals registered with Research Now should be approached in respect of surveys being conducted
• to provide you with information about benefits given to you by Research Now as a result of your responding to survey requests
• processing the answers to surveys and summarising the results
• undertaking research surveys on behalf of third parties
• transferring to service suppliers who undertake processing on our behalf and at our direction
• permitting third party research organisations to question individuals registered with Research Now in respect of surveys
• to provide you with information relating to any benefits provided to you by any third parties, including but not limited to a benefit provided to you by our client in response to your answer to a survey request
• transferring any personal information to any subsidiary or group company
• the administration of your membership of the Valued Opinions Panels (if you have registered as a member)
• statutory and regulatory compliance
• to process any enquiries raised by you and other communications initiated by you in relation to your dealings with Research Now and any services provided by Research Now
• marketing Research Now and its products and services, including those of its group companies and third party suppliers
• to transfer to third parties who provide services to Research Now or provide benefits to participants in Valued Opinions Panels
• contacting you by email to invite you to take part in surveys and when permitted by you, to send you electronic marketing communications keeping you informed about the activities of Research Now
• achieving the general objectives of Research Now.

We do not disclose your personal information to our clients for the purposes of allowing them to conduct direct marketing to you. We may use your personal information ourselves to conduct direct marketing but you are entitled to opt out from receiving direct marketing communications from us at any time. You may do so on our website or by responding to the opt-out option which is included with each direct marketing communication that we send.

Anonymisation

Research Now conducts surveys on a variety of topics. Clients will give Research Now a brief setting out the types of individuals from whom we should seek answers. The brief will include matters such as age, ethnic background, qualifications and occupation. Research Now will review its database and then send out invites to an online survey to people falling within the client brief. Research Now provides clients with data files containing anonymous answers to survey questions. No personal information in respect of those individuals responding to a survey will be given to clients of Research Now. Research Now will, from time to time, assist research organisations in other jurisdictions to survey people in the countries in which it operates. In these circumstances it will either send you a survey to complete, the answers of which will be summarised, anonymised and sent to the client or they will prepare questions for you to answer directly. In such circumstances your personal information is not transferred to third parties.

How we protect your personal information?

Research Now takes reasonable steps to protect your personal information from unauthorised access, use, disclosure or loss. These steps include the use of encryption systems, passwords and firewalls.

Disclosure of your personal information

We do not pass on personal information to organisations for whom we do market research, whether for research or marketing purposes. However, we do pass on information collected during surveys in a de-identified aggregated form to assist our clients in better product offerings. We will not supply any sensitive information about you to any third party without your consent. Personal information may be shared between members of the group of companies of which Research Now is now a part.

Export of personal information

Information may be disclosed by Research Now to related companies in the United Kingdom. The collection and handling of personal information by our group of companies in the United Kingdom is subject to the Data Protection Act 1988 and we and our related companies will comply with that legislation when we deal with your personal information in the UK. Please see our website privacy policy at www.valuedopinions.co.uk. Please note that information displayed on our website or sent to Research Now over the internet may be transferred outside a jurisdiction where data protection laws are not as strong as in Australia or the United Kingdom. If you have any concerns in relation to such transfers, you should not use the internet as a means of communication with Research Now.

Monitoring of telephone calls and e-mail

Your telephone calls and e-mails to us may be recorded and monitored for quality control purposes. We may also intercept communications made to individual members of staff at Research Now when this is required for business purposes

Cookies

We may use technology to track the patterns of behaviour of visitors to the site. This can include using a 'cookie', pieces of information that are transferred to an individual user's hard drive for record keeping purposes. At the present time we send a basic cookie to your computer which stores basic information which you enter into the site, which may include your name, address, phone number and email address (Basic Cookies). The Basic Cookie functions by saving your passwords and site preferences. As a result it is possible to speed up your future activities at the site and allow Research Now to provide you with information specifically tailored to your interests. You can usually modify your browser to prevent this happening. The information collected in this way can be used to identify you unless you modify your browser settings. To modify your browser settings click on the help section of your Internet browser and follow the instructions.

We also use an advanced cookie which incorporates a key which can identify tags contained in certain on-line advertisements relating to our clients and their products, services and other information (Advanced Cookies). If you click on an advertisement including the tag, the key will send Research Now an update confirming that you have linked to this advertisement. We use this information for the purposes specified above. We ensure that tags are not included in any advertisements which could provide information which amounts to sensitive personal data, for example information about your religious beliefs, your sexual life or your health.

In addition, we use Adobe Flash cookies in connection with our services on our website (Flash Cookies). Similar to basic and advanced cookies, Flash Cookies are used to remember settings, preferences and usage, but are managed through a different interface to the one provided by your web browser.  We use Flash Cookies to detect fraudulent panel members, e.g., those who have duplicate accounts with Valued Opinions and those who sign up with the Australian Valued Opinions panel from other countries. If you want to delete Flash Cookies, please access your Flash Player settings management tool available on Adobe's web site. However, if you do not accept Flash Cookies, you may not be able to use all portions of our website or all functionality of our services.

In the event that we do collect any personal information about visitors to the site through cookies it is available only to Research Now.
Access to your personal information

We will keep some personal information about panel members for the purposes of conducting our market research and our rewards programs. We will take reasonable steps to keep this information accurate, complete and up to date. If you wish to access the information that we hold about you, you may do so by contacting us as shown below. If you are a panel member you can check and update or view your details through our website.

Provision of information

If all or part of the information requested by us is not provided by you, we will not be able to register hyou as a member nor will you be able to take part in the surveys.

How to contact us

If you have any queries relating to this Privacy Statement, please feel free to contact us by email at enquiries@valuedopinion.com.au or by contacting us at:     

Valued Opinions   
P.O. Box A492    
Sydney South 1235    
Australia

Changes to our Privacy Statement

We may change our Privacy Statement from time to time. If we do so, we will advise of any changes on this website.

More information about privacy

For more information about privacy issues in Australia and protecting your privacy, visit the www.privacy.gov.au Australian Federal Privacy Commissioner's website at www.privacy.gov.au. For more information about how our group of companies handles personal information in the UK, please see www.valuedopinions.co.uk.