Last updated: 17 December 2019
YouGov’s client privacy and cookies notice
This client privacy notice applies to both clients (someone who is employed or otherwise engaged by a client of YouGov) and prospective clients (anyone who is not a YouGov client, but we believe may be interested in becoming one) of YouGov. We’ve tried to make it as easy to read as possible, but if anything in here is unclear, please contact us at dataprotection@yougov.com, and we’ll be happy to clear it up.
What this notice covers
As an organisation that relies on the use of personal data, YouGov is responsible for collecting and using your data in a responsible and safe way, and that starts with clearly telling you how we collect, use and protect your personal data. This privacy and cookies notice sets out:
- What kind of personal data we may collect from you;
- How and why we collect and use your personal data;
- Why we may share personal data within YouGov and with other organisations; and
- The rights and choices you have when it comes to your personal data.
YouGov is made up of a number of companies, each of which separately controls the data it collects about its clients and prospective clients. Being a data controller means we choose why and how that data is processed. You can find out which YouGov company is your data controller below:
- If you are a client of YouGov, the YouGov group company with which your organisation has a contract or agreement for services is the controller of your personal data.
- If you are a prospective client of YouGov, the YouGov group company named on any communication we send you is the controller of your personal data.
We refer to the data controller as “we”, “us”, “our” or “YouGov” in this privacy policy.
Personal data we collect
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In this section we explain what personal data we may collect when you are a YouGov client or prospective client, as well as data that we may collect from other sources |
Personal data collected from you
If you are a YouGov client, you provide us with personal data that enables us to provide our products and services to you – from your day-to-day interactions with our account managers and researchers, to your use of YouGov’s online tools (for example, BrandIndex, Profiles and YouGov Collaborate). If you are not a YouGov client, we may contact you to tell you about our products and services. You can find out more about the data we collect from you in the table below.
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When you contact us about our products or services, or become a YouGov client, we collect: |
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When you register on one of YouGov’s online tools, we collect: |
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When you use one of YouGov’s online tools, we collect: |
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When you complete a form on one of our websites, we collect: |
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We will only retain your personal data for as long as we need to in order to fulfil the uses we describe in this notice or to comply with statutory requirements, or until you exercise your right to erasure (which is explained in the ‘Your Rights’ section below).
Personal data collected from other sources
We may also use personal data about you that we have obtained from other sources:
- Public sources: for example, we may obtain your contact details from LinkedIn or your company’s website so we can contact you about YouGov’s products and services.
- Companies that maintain databases: we may obtain your contact details from organisations that maintain databases of information; for example, some organisations provide us with contact details so that we can contact you about our products and services.
- Publication partners: we collaborate with industry thought leaders to produce content such as reports and white papers, and if you download our content from one of our partners, they may send us your contact details so that we can contact you about our products and services.
- Your employer: if you work for an organisation that is a YouGov client, your employer may provide us with your contact details if you will be using our products and services.
If we contact you using information that we have not received directly from you, as outlined above, we will always tell you where we got your details from and give you the option to opt-out of receiving further communications from us. You can find out more about the communications we may send to you in the ‘Emails and notifications’ section of this privacy notice.
How and why we use your personal data, and who we share it with
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In this section we explain how and why we use your personal data, and provide information about the organisations we may share it with |
We use the data that you share with us, or that we receive from the other sources, to contact you about our products and services and to give you the best possible experience as a client. Our use of personal data is described in more detail in the table below.
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We use personal data to… |
For example… |
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Register and authenticate your YouGov account |
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Communicate with you about the products and services that we provide |
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Enable you to create and approve a survey within YouGov Collaborate |
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Monitor your use of YouGov’s online tools |
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Send you marketing communications |
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In order to use your personal data in the ways described above, we may share it within YouGov, and with certain third parties. Here is some more information about the types of organisations and what we may share with them:
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YouGov Group companies |
YouGov is a global organisation. This means that some of the personal data that we collect may be transferred within the YouGov Group of companies. For example, on multi-country accounts our account managers and researchers will work with their counterparts in other countries to best serve our clients. |
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Our clients |
From time-to-time, our clients request usage reports for YouGov’s online tools. For example, some clients use information about the use of our online tools to understand the penetration of the tool within the business. We may also share your name with other clients or prospective clients as part of a testimonial, but only with your permission. |
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Our publication partners |
We may collaborate with other organisations to produce industry reports or white papers. If you download this content via an online form on our website or a partner’s website, we may share your contact details with the co-author of the content (we will only do this where we are permitted to do so, and we will always make you aware of this before you download the content). |
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Our service providers |
We work with trusted service providers that carry out certain functions on our behalf so we can provide our services to you. These organisations process data on our behalf. They only have access to the personal data that they absolutely need to provide the specific service to us, and in all cases we have contractual safeguards in place to ensure that they do not disclose or use it for any other purposes. In some cases, these organisations may need to process your personal data for their own specific purposes, for example to ensure they are compliant with regulations or laws governing their own sectors. Our service providers fall within the following categories (and process your data globally):
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Other organisations |
These circumstances are unusual, but we may share personal data with other organisations if:
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Legal grounds for processing your personal data
YouGov is committed to the lawful, fair and transparent use of personal data. In processing personal data for the purposes of providing our clients with our products and services, we process your personal data on the grounds that our processing is necessary for legitimate interests we pursue as a business, namely that our business relies entirely on the ability to use your personal data to work with you to produce research and insights.
If we send you marketing communications to tell you about our products and services, we rely on one of the following legal grounds for processing:
- Legitimate interests; or
- Consent
Because marketing rules vary between countries, the legal ground for processing that we rely on will depend on (1) which YouGov company is sending the marketing communications, and (2) your geographic location.
If you have any questions about the grounds under which we process your personal data, or would like to find out more about the approach we take to determine that these grounds apply, please contact our Data Protection Officer using the contact details in the ‘How to contact us’ section.
Transferring personal data outside the EEA
We take all steps possible to ensure that your personal data remains within the European Economic Area (“EEA”). However, in some cases we need to share data with other YouGov group companies or third parties that are in countries outside the EEA. These countries may have different data protection laws and so they may not protect the use of your personal information to the same extent.
In these cases we put in place appropriate safeguards to make sure your personal data remains adequately protected. Specifically, we make use of one of the following:
- Standard contractual clauses: we use standard contractual clauses for the transfer of personal data to organisations outside the EEA. These contractual commitments have been adopted by the European Commission and ensure adequate protection for personal data transferred to countries outside the EEA by binding recipients of personal data to certain data protection standards including obliging them to apply appropriate technical and security measures. We use standard contractual clauses when we transfer data to other YouGov Group companies and for transfers to recipients that are neither Privacy Shield certified nor located in a country covered by an adequacy decision (see below).
- EU-US Privacy Shield: the Privacy Shield is a program agreed between the EU and US which aims to protect the personal data of anyone in the EU when it is transferred to the US by placing data protection obligations on US companies that receive personal data from the EU. YouGov may rely on these safeguards when transferring data to companies based in the US where those companies are Privacy Shield certified.
- Adequacy decisions: where the European Commission has determined that a country outside the EU offers an adequate level of data protection, personal data may be sent to that third country without implementing any other safeguards mentioned above. YouGov may rely on adequacy decisions when transferring data to companies based in countries where such assurances have been given.
Please contact us using the details at the end of this notice for more information about the protections that we put in place and to obtain a copy of the relevant documents.
How we store and protect your personal data
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We know how important it is to protect your personal data while we have it. This section describes some of the measures we take to ensure that it is kept secure |
We do everything we can to protect your personal data from loss or misuse, and from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration and destruction. This section describes some of the measures we take to ensure that your personal data is secure:
- We use data centres that have a high level of physical security measures to host and protect your data and our systems;
- We conduct independent penetration tests on an annual basis and are continuously scanning our systems and applications for vulnerabilities in our systems; if you ever think that you have found a security issue or vulnerability in one of our systems please let us know at security@yougov.com;
- We use encryption to secure your personal data whilst it is in transit using TLS and in storage using AES256 encryption;
- We allow access to attributable data (by which we mean data that directly identifies you) only to those YouGov employees who need it to carry out their job responsibilities, for example our account management team to allow them to respond to you when you contact us;
- We make security the responsibility of all our employees and we train our staff to identify security risks and protect your data.
Our website may from time to time contain links to and from other websites. If you follow a link to any of those websites, please note that those websites ought to have their own privacy notices and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for those websites. Please check those privacy notices before you submit your information to those websites.
Emails and notifications
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This section explains the choices you have when it comes to emails and notifications we may send to you |
If you are a client of YouGov panellist, it is important that we are able to send you emails and notifications about research projects that you are involved with. If you would prefer not to receive these service messages, you will not be able to continue as a YouGov client, and you should contact us if you want to discuss this further. In relation to these service messages, we rely on our legitimate interest in running our business as the legal grounds for this processing.
If you are a prospective client, we would like to send you marketing communications to tell you about our products and services, which could include information about industry insights, our data tools updates and emails direct from our sales teams. Because marketing rules vary between countries, the legal ground for processing that we rely on will depend on (1) which YouGov company is sending the marketing communications, and (2) your geographic location. You can read more about the legal grounds of processing that we rely on in sending these marketing communication in the ‘How and why we use your personal data, and who we share it with’ section above.
Cookies and similar technologies
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We use “cookies” to improve your experience as you use our online tools. This section tells you about the cookies that we use, what they do and your choices when it comes to cookies |
Cookies are small data files that allow a website to collect and store a range of data on your desktop computer, laptop or mobile device. We use cookies and similar technologies, such as tags and pixels (“cookies”) to help us to provide features and functionality on our online tools and generally improve the way they work. We use both cookies that YouGov sets (called ‘first party cookies’) and third party cookies (which are not set by YouGov, but by other sites with YouGov’s permission).
YouGov cookies
YouGov uses cookies to enable you to navigate our online tools and to use their features. The table below lists and describes the first party cookies that we are placed on our online tools.
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Cookie name |
What this cookie is used for |
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User session cookie |
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Third party cookies
The table below lists and describes the third party cookies that we are placed on our online tools. You can learn more about the cookies we use by clicking on the links provided below.
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Cookie type |
What these cookies are used for |
Cookies we use to achieve this |
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Analytics cookies |
We use analytics cookies to understand how you use our online tools so we can monitor performance and ultimately improve them. For example, by understanding how you use certain features, we can identify and fix page errors and improve the design and navigation. |
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Communication cookies |
We rely of certain cookies to communicate with you, and you with us. For example, users provide feedback on our online tools. |
Your choices when it comes to cookies
When you access our online tools, you are presented with an alert that notified you of our use of cookies. If you continue to use the online tools you are agreeing to the use of the cookies described in this notice. However, you can use your browser settings to accept or reject new cookies and to delete existing cookies. The ‘Help’ function within your browser should tell you how, and you can find more about how you can delete and manage cookies at http://www.allaboutcookies.org/. If you are primarily concerned about third party advertising cookies, you can turn these off by going to Your Online Choices at http://www.youronlinechoices.com/uk/your-ad-choices.
You should be aware that restricting the use of cookies may mean that you will not be able to take full advantage of all the features or services available on our online tools.
Email tracking
Some of the emails we send to you may contain a ‘web beacon pixel’ or tracked links which allows us to identify when you have opened the email and to verify which links contained in the email you have accessed. We use this information to determine which parts of our emails are of most interest to you. You can delete the pixel by deleting the email.
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This section explains the rights that you have in relation to the personal data that we hold about you |
You have certain rights in relation to the personal data that we hold about you, which are designed to give you more choice and control over your personal data. These rights are explained below.
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Right |
What does this mean? |
Is it available to you? |
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The right to request access to personal data |
You can request a copy of the data we hold about you and related information |
Yes |
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The right to request rectification of personal data |
You can ask us to correct any inaccurate data about you and to complete any incomplete data that we hold about you |
Yes |
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The right to request erasure of personal data |
You can request that we delete the personal data we hold about you |
Yes, in certain situations |
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The right to request a restriction on processing of personal data |
You can request that we restrict our use of your data to storage only, that we stop using it for all other purposes or that we retain data that was due for deletion. |
Yes, in certain situations |
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The right to object to the processing of personal data |
You can object to certain types of processing of your personal data in certain specific circumstances |
Yes, in certain situations |
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The right to opt out of YouGov selling personal data |
You can request that we not sell your personal data |
Yes, but please note we do not sell your data without your consent |
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The right of data portability |
You have the right to receive a copy of your personal data in a structured and machine-readable format and, where possible, have this sent to another organisation |
Generally, no. This is because almost all our processing activities rely on the grounds of our ‘legitimate interests’ to lawfully process your personal data. |
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The right to request information about personal data provided to third parties for marketing purposes |
California’s “Shine the Light” law (Civil Code Section 1798.83) permits users of our Website, that are California residents, to request certain information regarding our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. |
Yes, if you are a resident of California |
Automated decision making
We do not envisage that any decisions that will have a legal or other significant effect on you will be taken about you using purely automated means, however we will update this notice if this position changes and notify you of those changes.
Exercising your rights
You, or if you are a resident of California, a person registered with your State’s government whom you have authorized to act on your behalf, can exercise any of these rights by using the contact details below. While you have a right to request that we do not sell your data, please note that we would not sell your data without your consent. If you have given consent, you can withdraw it by contacting us at dataprotection@yougov.com.
Once you have submitted your request we may contact you to request further information to authenticate your identity (because we want to make sure it is actually you requesting your data) or to help us to respond to your request. Except in rare cases, we will respond to you within 1 month of receiving this information or, where no such information is required, after we have received full details of your request. As noted above, while some rights apply generally, some are only available in certain circumstances, so if we feel that any right is not available to you we will let you know along with the reason for our decision.
Email: your.rights@yougov.com
Mail: The Data Protection Officer
YouGov Plc
50 Featherstone Street
London
EC1Y 8RT
United Kingdom
Lodging a complaint with a regulator
You have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection regulator in Europe, in particular in a country you work or live, where your legal rights have been infringed or where your personal information has or is being used in a way that you believe does not comply with data. You can find the contact details of the appropriate regulator online, for example by searching for ‘Data Regulator’ and the country you live or work in. However, we encourage you to contact us before making any complaint and we will seek to resolve any issues or concerns you may have.
How to contact us
If you have questions about this notice, or about how we collect, store and use personal data, you can contact our Data Protection Officer.
Email: dataprotection@yougov.com
Mail: The Data Protection Officer
YouGov Plc
50 Featherstone Street
London
EC1Y 8RT
United Kingdom
Updates to this notice
This notice was last updated on the date that appears at the beginning of the notice. While we reserve the right to change this notice at any time, if any material changes are made we will inform you in an appropriate way.