Since its foundation in 1948 ESOMAR has promoted the
protection and
confidentiality of personal data through its Codes and
guidelines.
EFAMRO has
also from its inception in 1992 always fully supported this principle.
All ESOMAR
members undersign to observe the letter and the spirit of the rules laid out in
the
ICC/ESOMAR
code, which also has been adopted by EFAMRO and its member Associations.
This Code safeguards the anonymity and confidentiality
of respondents and states that the information collected
may be used
only for research purposes and not for sales or promotional activities directed
at individual respondents.
The EU Directive on Data Protection passed in 1995
required that member states would have incorporated this
into
national legislation during 1998.
However in spite of this piecemeal response the
situation for market researchers
is
potentially detrimentally affected by this legislation and the industry bodies
- EFAMRO
and ESOMAR have for a number of years been working together firstly
to
understand how the industry could be affected and secondly to make
representation
at the
European level as to how the legislation should be interpreted with regard to
market research.
All these representations are made on the basis that
there is
a clear
distinction between social and market research and commercial activities
such as
direct marketing which will be much more severely affected by data protection
legislation.