Legal policies

LDA Research Anti-Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement

Modern slavery is a crime and a violation of fundamental human rights. It takes various forms such as slavery, servitude, forced and compulsory labour and human trafficking, all of which have in common the deprivation of a person’s liberty by another in order to exploit them for personal or commercial gain.

LDA Research has a zero-tolerance approach to modern slavery and we are committed to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business dealings and relationships. We ensure the implementation and enforcement of effective systems and controls to ensure that modern slavery is not taking place anywhere within our own business or in any of our supply chains and we encourage employees and partners to challenge any areas where they feel acceptable ethical standards are not being met.

LDA Research Anti-Bribery and Corruption Statement

LDA Research is committed to ensuring that all payments and financial interactions between LDA Research, its clients and its respondents fulfil both domestic and international legal requirements around anti-corruption and bribery.

CORRUPTION

LDA Research has a zero tolerance towards all forms of corruption. Corruption includes, but is not limited to:

- Bribery:
We do not, directly or through a third party, promise, offer, make, authorise, solicit or accept any financial or other advantage to or from anyone to obtain or retain business, or secure an improper advantage in the conduct of business. Financial or other advantage covers anything of value, including cash, gifts, services, job offers, loans, travel expenses, entertainment or hospitality.
- Money laundering:
We do not conduct transactions that involve a benefit, property or proceeds resulting from crime including bribery, fraud or tax avoidance. Conducting those transactions may result in a breach of anti-money laundering laws and may require external reporting.
- Tax evasion:
We do not facilitate the evasion of taxes
- Fraud

INTERACTIONS WITH RESPONDENTS

Respondents are contracted on a regular basis to participate in impartial market research for LDA 

Research. In accordance with the ABPI code of practice, LDA Research will:

- Only offer incentives that are proportionate based on ‘fair market value’
- Only offer incentives that do not constitute, and cannot be perceived to constitute, a bribe
- Only offer incentives that do not require respondents to spend money (such as discount vouchers)
- Never offer reimbursement such that could influence the opinion or behaviour of the respondent
- Never offer reimbursement as a covert means of gathering personal data

Prior to contracting respondents for participation in any market research, LDA Research will clearly inform respondents:

- Who will administer the incentive
- What the incentive will be
- When the respondent will receive the incentive
- Whether any conditions are attached for receipt of the incentive (such as completion of a
specific task)
- Whether any quality control checks are in place (such as screening)

LDA Research will ensure that all reimbursed respondents’ personal data is not accessible to anyone outside the organization and that the processing of such data is done in accordance with the GDPR. In addition to the above, in accordance with the Sunshine Act for US respondents, LDA Research does not need to declare honoraria to clients where the respondents’ identities are covered (not revealed to the client).

INTERACTIONS WITH 3rd PARTIES AND CLIENTS

LDA Research accepts responsibility for managing the bribery and corruption risk when working with 3rd parties.

LDA Research will conduct due diligence to ensure that:

- there is a business reason for contracting with 3rd parties
- there is no conflict of interest in contracting with 3rd parties
- there is no prior behaviour of the 3rd party that would constitute a risk to LDA Research’s reputation

LDA Research requires that all contracting clients have in place an ABAC policy to ensure that local legal requirements are adhered to.

PAYMENT PROCESSES AND MAINTENANCE OF RECORDS

LDA Research retains the right to maintain financial records that accurately reflect the rationale, purpose, substance and legality of all transactions and payments. LDA Research does not induce or facilitate third parties to make incomplete or misleading entries in their own records.

LDA Research is alert to suspicious transactions where they have concerns regarding the parties involved, the structure and / or its proceeds.

LDA Research prohibits the following:

- Authorising or funding any transaction that is undisclosed or unrecorded in their records or accounts;
- Approving, inducing or making any payment with the purpose or understanding that any of it will be used for anything other than what is described in the supporting documents;
- Omitting, falsifying or disguising entries in any of their records or accounts or inducing or facilitating any third party to do so on their own;
- Paying expenses that are improper, unauthorized and / or not supported by adequate documentation;
- Dealing with, possessing, concealing or assisting any other person to deal with or conceal funds, assets or property where there is knowledge or suspicion that they relate to an underlying crime or terrorist funding.

LDA Research remains responsible for the accuracy and security of all records and accounts.

LDA Research Privacy and Data Protection Notice

LDA Research is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Any personal information that you share with us will only be used in accordance with this privacy statement. This privacy statement details how we collect information, what we do with it and what controls you have.

Who we are

LDA Research is an international qualitative field provider specialising in the pharmaceutical and medical device sector.

How we contact respondents

To request your participation in a survey from our records, we may contact you via email or social media.

We will also use public records to identify new participants for our surveys, who will be contacted in the same manner.

At times, we are asked by clients to contact potential survey participants via telephone using data from their records.

What data we collect

As part of our surveys, we will collect the following information:

- name and job title
- contact information including email address and telephone number
- other information relevant to our surveys, which may include sensitive health data

What happens to personal data we collect

Your contact information is only shared within the company and our associates to facilitate collection of the survey data. We do not provide your personal information to any third parties, including our clients, other market researchers and direct marketers.

We collect survey data via in-depth telephone interviews, focus groups and web-based surveys. All audio files, video files and web survey results are stored on our secure server and transferred as needed via encrypted, EU-based portals.

Your personal information and survey results stay on our secure server for the duration of the survey project. At the end of the survey, we ask our associates to remove and electronically shred all project related data from their computers. Six months after the survey ends, we will electronically shred pseudonymized project data from our secure server but will keep an anonymized version in our archive. We keep copies of payment records (minus contact information and bank details) in our archives for seven years and anonymized copies of our survey data and survey reports in perpetuity. Your contact information will only be added to our long-term respondent database with your approval. We do not share our respondent database details with any third parties, including our clients, other market researchers and direct marketers.

Upon completion of a survey, our survey reports containing your anonymized responses will be shared with our clients. Our reports have the potential to be shared internationally, but no personal data or other identifying information will be present in these reports. Our reports may contain anonymized survey data, amalgamated survey data and individual, anonymized quotes.

You can request to be removed from a given survey until the project closes or from our respondent database at any time. You can do so through the personal contact you have at LDA Research, info@LDAResearch.com or calling 01525 861436.

Anonymity and Security

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. To prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect.

Within LDA Research and our associates, we will share contact information and pseudonymized survey data via encrypted portals.

We will only share survey data with our clients once the material has been anonymized to remove any personal identifying information.

Your Rights

The European GDPR give everyone a number of very important rights. These are:
- Transparency over how we use your personal information (right to be informed).
- Request a copy of the information we hold about you, which will be provided to you within one month (right of access).
- Update or amend the information we hold about you if it is wrong (right of rectification).
- Ask us to stop using your information (right to restrict processing).
- Ask us to remove your personal information from our records (right to be 'forgotten').
- Object to the processing of your information for marketing purposes (right to object).
- Obtain and reuse your personal data for your own purposes (right to data portability).
- Not be subject to a decision when it is based on automated processing (automated decision making and profiling).

If you would like to know more about your rights under the data protection law see the Information Commissioners Office website.

If you would like to contact us regarding a specific privacy rights issue, please email info@LDAResearch.com or call 01525 861436.