Security & Privacy

Respondent Anonymity Assurance

QuestionPro offers a unique guarantee to survey researchers to protect the privacy and confidentiality of the respondents. The Respondent Anonymity Assurance (RAA) is only applicable and valid for select license holders.

What is RAA?

One of the challenges researchers face is the requirement for two directly conflicting issues:-

The ability to track who has responded to the survey and who has not -- for sending out reminder emails, giving out prizes or compensation etc.

AND
For human subjects protocols or other privacy reasons, ensuring that email identifications not be linked to the response data.

From a technical standpoint, if we need to track who has taken the survey and who has not, the survey researcher also implicitly has the ability to track the response for each individual. To overcome this issue, the Respondent Anonymity Assurance (RAA) has been introduced.

QuestionPro asserts that once RAA is enabled on a survey, although computer-generated identification numbers for individuals will be generated, the survey researcher will not have access to both the respondent's email address as well as the response data at the same time.

What assertions does QuestionPro make for RAA-enabled surveys?

Perpetual Safeguard: Once the RAA is enabled for a survey, it will remain perpetual and cannot be rescinded — by the researcher or anyone else.
Strict Separation: The QuestionPro Survey Software will never present a respondent's email address linked to the response data in any of the analysis tools, reports, and data downloads.

Joint Responsibility: Technology vs. Content

QuestionPro (Data Processor): We provide the robust technical architecture to mask system-generated metadata (such as email-trigger links, IP addresses, and custom variables).
The Survey Creator (Data Controller): The survey creator is solely responsible for ensuring that they do not explicitly ask for personally identifiable information (PII) within the survey questions themselves (e.g., asking for names, phone numbers, or employee IDs in open-text boxes). QuestionPro cannot be held liable for privacy claims arising

Are there any Exceptions?

Under certain conditions, including but not limited to law enforcement requests and subpoenas, QuestionPro may have to divulge respondent data as well as email address if required to do so by law. QuestionPro is incorporated in the State of Washington, United States. QuestionPro also has offices in India.

The legal jurisdiction for any disputes arising out of this or any other agreement shall be King County, WA.

Limits of Liability

QuestionPro shall not be liable in any event for incidental or consequential damages in connection with, or arising out of, the furnishing, performance, or use of this documentation, or any software provided by QuestionPro.

QuestionPro may be held liable only in the case of willful negligence on QuestionPro's part. Furthermore, the damages are limited to actual damages and not perceived, punitive, consequential or incidental damages.from identifying questions written into the survey content by the creator.

How do I know if a survey I am taking is protected by this guarantee?

For surveys that have RAA enabled, a link to the details about the guarantee will be put on the "Bottom Right" corner of the survey. This link cannot be removed or added by the survey researcher. It will be automatically added on surveys that have the anonymity guarantee enabled. Once this link is enabled it cannot be removed, changed or edited. The text for the link will be the following:-

QuestionPro: Respondent Anonymity Assurance

I am taking a survey, and it is not protected by RAA! What do I do?

Not all surveys need this level of protection. This only applies to surveys that have a computer generated respondent identification mechanism enabled. Many researchers choose not to enable this and send out a simple link to the survey without the identification mechanism. In such cases there is no way of identifying who has taken the survey and who has not. Please consult with the owner of the survey to see if respondent identification is enabled or not. In most cases, researchers will disclose this information at the beginning of the survey.

Furthermore, QuestionPro may not be held liable for privacy claims made by survey researchers.

Why is this feature not available to all license levels?

Not all surveys need this level of protection. This only applies to surveys that have a computer generated respondent identification mechanism enabled. Many researchers choose not to enable this and send out a simple link to the survey without the identification mechanism. In such cases there is no way of identifying who has taken the survey and who has not. Please consult with the owner of the survey to see if respondent identification is enabled or not. In most cases, researchers will disclose this information at the beginning of the survey.

Due to the legal liability QuestionPro assumes, we have decided to give this out only to select few license holders.

How do I enable RAA for one of my surveys?

You can enable RAA for your survey by navigating to Survey Builder (Workspace) -> Settings -> Respondent Anonymity Assurance (RAA), for more details you can check our helpfile: https://www.questionpro.com/help/respondent-anonymity-assurance-raa.html