As one of the largest European markets, Germany is a major player in the market research space. German data are protected by the GDPR. In addition, German data privacy laws require further protection of personal data.
Market Research in Germany
Based on the German declaration concerning the “ICC/ ESOMAR International Code on Market, Opinion and Social Research and Data Analytics”, and on the “Guideline Concerning Recording and Observation of Group Discussions and Qualitative Interviews” by the Arbeitskreis Deutscher Markt - und Sozialforschungsinstitute e.V., or ADM, data collected in a market research session may only be used in an anonymized or pseudonymized way by the customers commissioning such studies.
Discuss compliance with German data/privacy regulations
In our role as a data processor, Discuss offers the following functionality to help customers stay compliant with German data privacy regulations for their Live Qual Research.
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Respondent Location - When an interview is scheduled, the scheduler is required to set the respondents’ location. This allows Discuss to detect interviews with German data subjects and provide proper anonymization
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Meeting Room Pseudonyms - Respondents and moderators appear with pseudonyms rather than real names to protect privacy. Phone users are anonymized and phone numbers are never visible. Learn more
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Private Chat - Sensitive data can be shared with tech support via private chat for troubleshooting. All chat messages can be deleted when no longer needed. Private chats are not visible to project members after the interview and can be requested by contacting customercare@discuss.io Learn more
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Anonymized Video Recordings - All German interviews are anonymized in post-processing, ensuring faces are not identifiable in the final recording. Researchers can interact on video during the interview, but recordings, stimuli, and screen shares are blurred and cannot be unblurred. Whiteboard snapshots remain clear. Learn more
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Audio-Only Interviews - We also offer audio-only interviews, in which the webcam never comes on. This allows researchers to utilize all the meeting room functionality like Saved Moments, Discussion Guides, integrated translation, and private chat while providing an extra layer of privacy when live video is not required. Learn more
- Restrict Observer Audio - When there's a session with a simultaneous translator, observers will ONLY be able to hear the translator's audio and not the main meeting room. This is useful to protect the audio of the respondents. Learn more
- Disable Recording - This feature allows disabling recordings at the project or interview level. Clients can choose to override all interviews or apply the setting only to new ones from their Project Settings. The recording status for each session can be viewed in the Recording column under the Overview tab. In the meeting room, the Help! button remains available if Live Support is included. Learn more
For Async Research, Self-captures responses are not anonymized.
FAQs
All interviews must include a respondent country when they are scheduled. When this country is set to Germany, recordings will be anonymized automatically. No further action is needed. If you are doing a multi-country interview, and there are any participants from Germany, the respondent location should be set to Germany to maintain compliance.
Due to privacy restrictions, it is not possible to turn off the usage of pseudonyms in the meeting room or to maintain non-anonymized recordings. Once a recording is anonymized, it cannot be reversed.
Project members have separate options to blur videos and/or to anonymize respondent/moderator names. Collaborators & Editors can turn this on by visiting the Settings tab of their project and checking the appropriate box. This feature must be turned on prior to an interview starting, and once anonymized, a recording cannot be reversed.
Please note that turning this checkbox off will not impact the anonymization of interviews in Germany, which users cannot turn off.
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Stimuli are blurred
- Mobile Screenshare is blurred
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Whiteboard snapshot aren’t blurred
The setting can be turned off at any time by project members, and future recordings in that project will not be anonymized.
If the option to blur recordings is enabled, project members will also be able to also apply blurring to previous interviews or to media upload from the recordings tab.
Users are notified of these requirements if they select Germany as a country when using our interactive quote app. In addition, any user scheduling an interview will be notified when they set the respondent country to Germany.
Project owners receive an email detailing our anonymization features when their project kicks off in Germany, and project members viewing recordings will see an informational note explaining why the recordings are anonymized.