The Code in seven points

The International ICC/ESOMAR Code on Market, Opinion and Social Research and Data Analytics

1. The Code is a self-regulatory instrument, a set of rules for professionals offering data-based solutions to business and to the public sector.

2. The Code is a joint work of ESOMAR, the global association of the data, research and insights community, and the ICC, the International Chamber of Commerce. Accepting the Code is a condition of ESOMAR membership. SIMAR members have signed up to the Code, SIMAR promotes its application and is the contact point for handling complaints about breaches of it.

3. The Code rests on three basic principles:

(a) When collecting personal data from data subjects for research purposes, researchers must be transparent about what information they intend to collect, state the purpose for which it will be collected, and say with whom the information will be shared and in what form.

(b) Researchers must ensure that the personal data used in research are thoroughly protected against unauthorised access and are not published without the data subject’s consent.

(c) Researchers must always behave ethically and do nothing that could harm a data subject or damage the reputation of market, opinion and social research.

4. Researchers draw a clear line between research and non-research activity, distinguishing research from any commercial activity (promotion or selling) and making that distinction transparently clear to the people taking part.

5. Researchers must not share participants’ personal data with the client unless the data subject has given explicit consent and a specific purpose for which the data will be used has been stated.

6. Researchers are transparent towards clients: the findings they provide are evidently and adequately supported by the data, they allow the quality of data collection and data processing to be checked, and they give clients the technical information about the research that is needed to judge whether the results are valid.

7. Researchers must comply with all applicable international and national laws, local codes of conduct and professional standards or rules. Researchers must be honest, truthful and objective and must ensure that their research is carried out in accordance with the relevant scientific principles, methods and techniques of research. Researchers must always behave ethically and must do nothing that could unjustifiably damage the reputation of research or lead to a loss of public confidence in it.