Research Privacy Policy

Clarion Research Privacy Policy

Effective January 1, 2020

Clarion Research, Inc. (Clarion) is fully committed to safeguarding your privacy. Regardless of whether you are engaging with us as a research participant, research partner, research client, or prospective client, we have implemented data privacy systems and practices to ensure your research data and your personal data are respected and secured. Clarion Research business Services are to conduct market research studies solely for market research purposes for our use or on behalf of our customers and other third parties (“Partners”). As a research participant, we sometimes offer incentives in exchange for your participation. We share survey results and other information collected with our Partners who typically use the information we provide to conduct and improve their products, services, and advertisements.

This policy defines the commitment of Clarion Research to protect the privacy of Personal Information that is collected or used in the course of conducting Clarion Research business. On a global basis, Clarion will, and will cause its affiliates to, establish and maintain business procedures that are consistent with this policy.

Clarion Research adheres to the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework as set forth by the US Department of Commerce, under the enforcement authority of the Federal Trade Commission, regarding the collection, use, and retention of personal information from European Union member countries. Clarion Research has certified that it adheres to the Privacy Shield Principles of Notice, Choice, Accountability for Onward Transfer, Security, Data Integrity and Purpose Limitation, Access, and Recourse, Enforcement and Liability. If there is any conflict between the policies in this privacy policy and the Privacy Shield Principles, the Privacy Shield Principles shall govern. To learn more about the Privacy Shield program, and to view our certification, please visit https://www.privacyshield.gov/.

Privacy is an especially important issue for marketing research and opinion research since we are in contact with consumers, healthcare patients, and business people on a daily basis. In this regard, we often obtain confidential information from such persons. (“Personally Identifiable Information or PII”). In order to protect the company and our research respondents and comply with legal requirements such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”), the Child Online Privacy and Protection Act (“COPPA”) and other relevant statutes and regulations, it is important to us that we are aware of and comply with our Privacy Policy and Principles when handling PII.

The Information Clarion Research Collects

Personally Identifiable Information (PII). You may provide personally identifiable information to Clarion, including, but not limited to, your name, email address, postal mailing address, home/mobile telephone number, and other information (collectively “PII” or “personally identifiable information”). PII may be collected, without limitation, in connection with participation in interviews, completing surveys, when voluntarily provided to us, or your viewing of content on the Website. In addition, you may choose to post certain personally identifiable information to your public “profile” on websites such as email address, telephone number, mailing address, personal photos, avatars, descriptions of occupation, title, employer, interests, and related comments.

Cookies. We may automatically collect certain types of usage and device data when you visit our websites or online surveys. This information is collected by us through a variety of technologies, including cookies, location-identifying technologies and similar technology. When you visit Clarion websites or online surveys, we may send one or more cookies—small text files containing a string of alphanumeric characters—to your device. The website uses both session cookies and performance cookies, which are persistent. A session cookie disappears after you close your browser. A persistent cookie remains after you close your browser and may be used by your browser on subsequent visits to the website. Specifically, performance cookies are in place so that traffic patterns and uses on the website may be measured and optimized.

Person information from third parties. We may also obtain personal and other information about you from third parties, which we often combine with personal information we collect automatically, or you provided to us. For example, Partners and other parties may provide us with demographic and address information, device identifiers and other device and other information. We may also use analytics services provided by third parties.

How we use your information

We use the information we collect for purposes described in this Privacy Policy or as otherwise disclosed to you on our websites, during our in-person research, or during our surveys. For example, we use information we collect for:

  • Providing you with relevant survey opportunities. For example, demographic information may be used to match you to types of consumers a Partner may want to survey. Or, your location data may be used to offer you surveys while you are visiting a specific location such as a store or restaurant, or theater.
  • Market research purposes for Partners to improve their products, services and advertising.
  • Conducting our research and analysis to improve our products and services, identify consumer trends, develop consumer segments and other market research purposes.
  • Detecting and preventing fraudulent users of survey responses and other fraudulent activities.
  • Paying incentives to you using your email address or other information.
  • Communicating with you such as responding to your comments or questions, authenticating your identity and providing you with updates to our products and services.
  • Monitor, administer, and enhance our services, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical, and survey purposes.

If you participate in our surveys, the survey responses that you provide will be used only for market research. We will not use or share your responses for direct marketing.


Disclosure of Personal Information

At Clarion Research, we want you to understand when and with whom we may share your personal information. We may disclose your personal information in the ways described below. We do not sell or provide your personal information to Partners for their use in marketing and advertising products or services to you.

  • To our Partners, which handle the information according to their own privacy policies. We share information with our Partners to provide them with our services or for their own purposes. Typically, the information we share with Partners can include personal information, survey responses, geolocation information, and/or demographic information associated with unique identifiers such as hashed email addresses, device identifiers, or other alphanumeric identifiers used for internal purposes. We may also provide Partners with aggregate reports that include combined demographic or other survey data.
  • Authorized third-party vendors. In some cases, we share personal data with authorized contractors, subcontractors, third-party vendors, and service providers who help us operate our business and provide our services. For example, we may share personal information with service providers that provide services such as web hosting, data analysis and reporting, auditing and compliance, network and data security and identifying consumer demographics and geolocation.
  • Legal purposes. We disclose personal information when we believe in good faith that the law requires it, pursuant to a court order, subpoena, warrant, in response to a law enforcement request, as otherwise required or requested by law, regulation, or government authority programs; disclosing this information is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be violating the law or our rights or interfering with (either intentionally or unintentionally) use of services or to protect our rights or the rights or safety of others; and for other legal related purposes.
  • Business event. We may disclose personal information in connection with an actual or potential sale of stock or assets, merger, or any other change of control transaction (including in bankruptcy), or in the case of a bulk or partial sale, or other transfer (including third party panelist administration) of information to another research organization / end user;
  • With your consent. We share personal information for any other purpose disclosed to you with your consent

We may also share and disclose information that is aggregated, de-identified or otherwise does not specifically identify you or your device, in our discretion. We restrict our Partners by contract from using information collected through the Platform for direct marketing back to you.

Updating/Removing Personal Information

You may, of course, decline to share your PII with Clarion in which case you will not be able to fully participate in our research studies or some aspects of our websites.

You can also ask us to delete your personal information related to your research participation from our active files by emailing us at info@clarionresearch.com. We may still retain some personal information as needed for legal and recordkeeping purposes. A request to delete your personal information will not affect any information that we previously shared with Partners or other third parties as described above. In all other cases, we will retain information as long as required by law or as long as needed for our business purposes. We may also continue to use and share the information that you previously provided, as described in this Privacy Policy.

Third-party Links

As a result of participating in our surveys, interviews, or other services, you may be provide links to third-party websites or apps including offers and links to third-party platforms. We do not control the privacy practices of those websites or apps, and they are not covered by this Privacy Policy. You should review the privacy policies of other websites or apps to learn about their data practices. Your interactions with third-party companies and your use of their features are governed by the privacy notices of the companies that provide those features. We encourage you to carefully read the privacy notices of any accounts you create and use.

Commitment to Data Security

Clarion Research uses commercially reasonable physical, managerial, and technical safeguards to preserve the integrity and security of personally identifiable information. Clarion operates secure data networks protected by industry standard firewall and password protection systems. We periodically review and enhance our security and privacy policies as necessary and only authorized individuals have access to the information provided by our users, customers, sponsors and members. HOWEVER, THIS IS NOT A GUARANTEE THAT SUCH INFORMATION MAY NOT BE ACCESSED, DISCLOSED, ALTERED, OR DESTROYED BY BREACH OF ANY OF OUR PHYSICAL, TECHNICAL, OR MANAGERIAL SAFEGUARDS.

Commitment to Children’s Privacy

Protecting the privacy of young children is especially important. For that reason, Clarion does not knowingly collect or maintain PII from persons under 13 years-of-age, and no part of our work is directed to persons under 13. If you are under 13 years of age, then please do not use or access our website, participate in any of our interviews, online surveys or participate in any of our research services at any time or in any manner. If the Clarion learns that PII of persons less than 13-years-of-age has been collected, then the Clarion will take the appropriate steps to delete this information.

If you are a parent or guardian who has discovered that your child has submitted his or her personal information without your permission or consent, Clarion will take reasonable steps to remove that information from its database at your request. To request removal of your child's information, please send us an e-mail at info@clarionresearch.com and be sure to include in your message the same user name, password, and e-mail address that your child submitted.

Nevada Privacy Rights

Under Nevada law, Nevada residents may submit a request directing us not to make certain disclosures of personal information we maintain about them. To exercise this right, you may contact us as follows:

  • Email us at info@clarionresearch.com
  • Telephone call. You may submit requests by calling us at: 1-212-664-1100

California Privacy Rights

This section contains disclosures required by the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) and applies only to “personal information” that is subject to the CCPA. Consumers with disabilities may access this notice by using a standard screen reader.

Personal Information We Collect, Disclose for a Business Purpose, and Sell.

In the past 12 months, we may have collected the categories of personal information about California consumers listed below:

  • Personal and online identifiers such as first and last name, email address, postal address or IP Address;
  • Characteristics of protected classifications under California or federal law (such as race or gender);
  • Commercial or transactions information (such as records of personal property or products or services purchased, obtained or considered);
  • Internet or other electronic network activity information (such as browsing history, search history, interactions with a website, email, application, or advertisement);
  • Usage and device data;
  • Geolocation information;
  • Education information;
  • Inferences drawn from the above information about your predicted characteristics and preferences;
  • Other information about you that is linked to the personal information above.

Categories of Sources From Which Information May Be Collected.

We collect this personal information from the following categories of sources:

  • Consumers;
  • Partners (as defined in this Privacy Policy);
  • Social Networks;
  • Service providers;
  • Consumer data resellers.

Why We Collect, Use, and Share California Information.

In the past 12 months, we used, disclosed or sold the personal information we collect for our commercial and business purposes, as further described in this Privacy Policy. These commercial and business purposes include, without limitation:

Our commercial purposes, including:

  • Providing you with relevant surveys
  • Providing our services to Partners
  • Market research for Partners to improve their products, services and advertising.
  • Our market research and analysis to provide services to Partners, improve our products and services, identify consumer trends, develop consumer segments and other market research purposes.
  • Our business purposes as identified in the CCPA, which include:
  • Auditing related to our interactions with you;
  • Legal compliance;
  • Detecting and protecting against security incidents, fraud, and illegal activity;
  • Debugging;
  • Performing services (for us or our service provider) such as account servicing, processing orders and payments, and analytics;
  • Internal research for technological improvement;
  • Internal operations;
  • Activities to maintain and improve our services; and
  • Other one-time uses.

Recipients of California Personal Information.

During the past 12 months, we may have disclosed, shared or sold the categories of personal information designated above to the categories of third parties listed below.

  • Partners;
  • Service providers.

Your Rights Regarding Personal Information.

California residents have certain rights with respect to the personal information collected by businesses. If you are a California resident, you may exercise the following rights regarding your personal information, subject to certain exceptions and limitations:

  • For certain categories of personal information, the right to request a list of what personal information (if any) we disclosed to third parties in the preceding calendar year and the names and addresses of those third parties;
  • The right to know the categories and specific pieces of personal information we collect, use, disclose, and sell about you, the categories of sources from which we collected your personal information, our purposes for collecting or selling your personal information, the categories of your personal information that we have either sold or disclosed for a business purpose, and the categories of third parties with which we have shared personal information;
  • The right to request that we delete the personal information we have collected from you or maintain about you.
  • The right to opt out of our sale(s) of your personal information. Please note that if you opt out of certain types of sales, we will be unable to provide you with the services that rely on such sales, including survey opportunities.
  • The right not to receive discriminatory treatment for the exercise of the privacy rights conferred by the CCPA.

To exercise any of the above rights, please contact us using the following information and submit the required verifying information, as further described below:

  • Email us at info@clarionresearch.com
  • Telephone call. You may submit requests by calling us at: 1-212-664-1100

Verification Process and Required Information.

Note that we may need to request additional information from you to verify your identity or understand the scope of your request, although you will not be required to create an account with us to submit a request or have it fulfilled. You may be required to provide the following for verification purposes:

  • Your first and last name
  • Your email address
  • Your telephone number

Authorized Agent.

You may designate an authorized agent to make a CCPA request on your behalf by providing us with a power of attorney or your written permission to allow the authorized agent to submit the request on your behalf and verification of your identity.

Minors’ Right to Opt In.

We do not sell the personal information of minors under 16 years of age.

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to modify or revise this Privacy Policy at any time and in our sole discretion. We will post any changes to this Privacy Policy on our Services. We encourage you to revisit this policy regularly to stay informed about how we collect, use, and share your information.

Contacting Us

If you have questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or the use or disclosure of your information as described in this Privacy Policy, please contact us at info@clarionresearch.com