Privacy Policy

For participation in the Dental Research Specialists Dentist and Hygienist Panels(“Privacy Policy”)

Your privacy is important to us

MSG Minnesota Inc. commonly known as (“MSG”, “we” or “us”), is a Minnesota C-Corporation with an office at 3356 Sherman Court, Suite 103, Eagan, MN 55121. This privacy policy explains how we use any personal and practice information we collect about you (“Panelist”, ”you” or “your”) when you join either the Dentist Dispatch, or The Hygienist Collective on-line panel (“Panel”), take part in surveys.

Topics:

1. Why We Collect Information from You
2. What Personal Data Do We Collect About You?
3. How Will We Use the Information About You?
4. Use of Cookies and Similar Code
5. Use of Digital Fingerprinting, Device Data and Other Information on Your Device
6. How Long Will We Keep the Information You Provide?
7. How Do We Ensure Your Personal Information Is Secure?
8. Automated Individual Decision-Making, Including Profiling
9. How Can You Access Your Information and/or Correct It and/or Request Its Transfer and/or Erasure and/or Complain
10. State Legislative Requirements
11. Changes to Our Privacy Policy
12. Useful Links

1. Why We Collect Information from You

The primary purpose and why we collect information from you is to conduct market research. When you join our Panel, we enter into a contract with you, which is subject to this Privacy Policy as well as our Terms and Conditions.

In order to fulfill this contract by inviting you to appropriate surveys, we need to collect and process the information requested during your registration or which you may subsequently add to your profile on the Membership panel site or that we collect in accordance with this Privacy Policy and process it using automated means. This information will also be required to contact you concerning any surveys. This is also explained in more detail in our Terms and Conditions.

We then also collect information from you based upon your consent, in particular where you either respond to any survey invitations we might be sending you or that you may otherwise voluntarily provide. Your responses to such surveys are at your choice. There might also be situations where we are seeking your further or even explicit consent where this might be appropriate or required.

We also collect personal information from you, based upon your Cookie consent (see also below at paragraphs 5 and 6), about your device you may use whilst taking part in our online research activities for statistical purposes, quality control, validation, fraud prevention and fraud control.

During your Panel membership, we automatically collect information about your device to protect our business interests or, subsequently, those of a third party (generally, a client or partner of MSG or other Panelists) for the purposes of preventing fraud and security checks.

The overall operation and how the Panel works is described in more detail in our Terms and Conditions.

2. What Personal Data Do We Collect About You?

We collect the personal data (“information”) you provide by email and in completing our registration questionnaire when joining our Panel. In case the registration process is not successfully completed, your information will not be retained by us, apart from some limited information to prevent any fraud or misuse.

We also collect the information you voluntarily provide when completing any of the surveys we invite you to participate in or when you provide feedback, comments, or other information on our Panelists’ website.

The categories of personal data we may collect about you through your involvement in the panel include:

• Identification Data – e.g. your name, age, gender, etc.
• Contact Data – e.g. your phone number, email address, postal address, etc.
• Data relating to your practice financial and economic situation – e.g. revenue, number of employees, operatories, etc.
• Work Life Data – e.g. your specialization, education, years in dentistry, roles and responsibilities, etc.
• Device &a,p; Internet Connection Data – e.g. details about your computer, mobile device, IP address, location data, advertising IDs, logs (See Paragraph 5 and 6)
• We may ask questions about your habits and preferences within our surveys, including also open ended responses or verbatims.

When you participate in an online survey, we also collect some passive data for quality purposes as described below at paragraphs 5 and 6.

In some instances, concerning our research, we may ask you to provide certain sensitive personal data, for example revealing your racial or ethnic origin, philosophical beliefs regarding dentistry, employees or employers. You do not have to answer these questions and such questions will always include a “prefer not to answer” option. Responses to these questions will remain confidential unless you explicitly and freely consent to your responses to these questions, together with your personal information, being passed to research clients, such transfer bringing added value related to their research analysis.

We collect certain information about your device, and the hardware and software present on your device, by using Cookies (as defined below and as set out below at paragraph 5).

We automatically also capture information about your IP address, the country where your device is located, operating system, screen display settings, browser type, use of Java, and whether your device has a web cam.

3. How Will We Use the Information About You?

We will use the information collected about you to:

• Fulfill our contract with you;
• Keep a record of all Panelists;
• Send you invitations to participate in surveys that are relevant to you based on the information you provided in response to our registration questionnaire(s) or as may be updated at a later stage;
• Send you a SMS message to your mobile phone number containing a verification code, to verify your application, activate your Panelist account. For this we will share your phone number with our trusted vendor providing us with such services, to contact you via SMS message on behalf of IIS (the list of trusted providers can be found here). For the SMS message, our trusted provider is based in the United States for which there currently is no data protection adequacy finding. Therefore, appropriate safeguard has been put in place, including Standard Contractual Clauses. A copy of the additional safeguard can be obtained by contacting us as set out in Paragraph 10;
• Implement our quality control, fraud prevention & control programs, security checks, identify if you are an existing member of the Panel, or determine if your membership is a result from any paid for advertising. For this we will share certain information about your device with our trusted vendors to carry out the necessary checks (the list of trusted service providers can be found here);
• Append existing practice information about you to any of your survey responses, such as general geographical location, etc. for survey analysis of the responses and producing statistical research results;
• Enter you into any prize draws that you are eligible to take part in or, where invited to do so, have asked to be entered;
• With your explicit consent, which might be sought in a specific survey and limited thereto, to pass your individual survey responses together with your personal information to the client who commissioned the survey. The client will use this information only for research purposes as explained in the relevant survey.
• Where you have explicitly consented separately and prior to your information being provided to the client for this, the client may also use this information to contact you to invite your participation in further research they conduct;
• To create anonymous, statistical profiles of the Panel membership based on the information provided by Panelists;
• Send you by email newsletters, announcements, and other communications as set out in the Terms and Conditions. We are using one of our trusted service providers for this purpose (the list of trusted service providers can be found here).
• Where you agree to take part in a product test to arrange for such product to be sent to you.
• Send you invitations by text message or other messaging service to take part in research.
• Detect if your computer or mobile device has a web cam attached so that we may offer to you specific survey sections requiring web cam usage.

We will take all reasonable steps to ensure that any personal and practice data we process are accurate, adequate, relevant, and not excessive, given the purpose for which they were obtained. We will not process personal data obtained for one purpose for any unconnected purpose unless you have consented to this.

We will NEVER use your information for any purpose other than research or as described in this Privacy Policy and the Terms and Conditions. Other than in relation to this Panel (like participating in further surveys), we will NOT try to sell you anything, nor use your information for marketing purposes. Nor will we ever pass your information to third parties to individually target you for marketing or advertising purposes.

4. Use of Cookies and Similar Code

By joining our Panel and taking part in our online research, you agree to our use of cookies and similar technologies (“Cookies”) and the collection of information from your PC/Laptop or other computing device you may use whilst taking part in our online research activities as outlined below.

Our Panel website and online surveys collect information using Cookies and functionally similar technologies. Cookies are small files stored on your computer.

5. Use of Digital Fingerprinting, Device Data and Other Information on Your Device

We also gather certain information about your PC/Laptop, mobile device, or other device, and the hardware and software present on your device. For example, this includes the IP address of your internet connection, the display settings of your monitor, the type of browser used, the type of operating system, the country where your device is located, whether your device has a webcam etc. This information is sent to our trusted provider who converts it into a unique serial number (the digital “fingerprint”) and determines if it matches previous fingerprints. The data collected in this process and the digital fingerprint created are not tied to any of your personal information, is stored on secured servers, and is only used for quality control and fraud prevention purposes and to help prevent Panelists from completing the same survey more than once, and for no other purpose.

We also use your mobile device ID to identify if you are an existing member of the panel and to determine if your membership is a result from any paid for advertising.

6. How Long Will We Keep the Information You Provide?

We will keep the profile information you provided for as long as you remain a Panelist.

If we terminate your membership, we will delete your personal information within thirty (30) days or as otherwise set out in this paragraph. If you terminate your Panel membership, we will delete your personal information as soon as possible, and no later than seven (7) days following your request.

The only exceptions to these rules are as follows:

• If you have filed a specific “do-not-contact” request, then we will retain only that information required to honor your request.

Apart from your profile information, we also gather the answers you give in any survey. The answers provided by you will be pseudonymized by us for security reasons and will only be shared with our clients in an anonymized form, unless you have given explicit consent to being identified. We will also remove the link between your profile information and the survey answers you provided within twelve (12) months of the end of the research project, to ensure that these answers cannot be traced back to you.

Information shared with our third-party service providers (such as the digital fingerprint service provider, for example) is pseudonymized to ensure that this information cannot be traced back to your account by them or any other third party. In addition, while the device information itself may be stored on our side for longer periods of time, the recipients of such information are required not to retain the data itself or the link between this information and MSG for more than 180 days.

7. How Do We Ensure Your Personal Information Is Secure?

We take our responsibilities to keep your personal information secure very seriously. As such we take every reasonable precaution to ensure your information is protected from loss, theft, or misuse. These precautions include appropriate physical security of our offices, controlled access to computer systems, and use of secure, encrypted internet connections when collecting personal information.

8. Automated Individual Decision-Making, Including Profiling

With regard to any decisions based solely on automated processing, including the creation of a profile, you have certain rights. In certain situations, within the purposes mentioned above, we process your personal data including through automatic processing mechanisms (including by creating the profile). If we refuse, suspend, or discontinue the provision of a product, reward, or service as a result of any automated decision, we will inform you about this, and you will be able to obtain relevant information about the logical mechanism which is the basis for making that decision. You will also have the right to obtain human intervention from us, to express your point of view and to challenge that decision. In order to do so, please contact us as set out in paragraph 10.

Specific decisions about your account that are based on automated processes are listed below. In case you disagree with any such decision that may have been made, please contact our Data Protection Department as set out at paragraph 10.

• Panel Registration leading to the final resolution of registering you as a Panel member.
• Sample selection, to be invited as respondents to the specific research survey as per the survey sampling specifications.
• Incentives allocation according to the applicable incentives program.
• Our Panel quality program ensures the Panel and sample quality and accuracy as set out in our Terms and Conditions.

9. How Can You Access Your Information and/or Correct It and/or Request Its Transfer and/or Erasure and/or Complain

You have the right to request a copy of all the information we hold about you. You also have the right to request the correction of any personal or practice data we hold about you. Furthermore, you have the right for all the information you have provided to us to be transferred to another party. In some circumstances, you also have the right to request from us the deletion or erasure of the personal information we hold about you, subject to the limitation set out above under paragraph 7.

If you would like to exercise any of your above rights, have any questions or require further information about our Privacy Policy or our compliance with data protection laws, please contact our Data Protection Department. They can be contacted:

By email sent to: dentalresearchspecialists@mnmsg.com with “Dentist Dispatch or The Hygienist Collective Panel” as subject line.

Or write to us at:
Ref: Dentist Dispatch or The Hygienist Collective Panel
Data Protection Officer,
MSG Minnesota Inc, 3356 Sherman Court, Suite 103,
Eagan, MN 55121
Or contact us by phone at: (612) 333-5400

10. State Legislative Requirements

Certain State laws may give you additional rights to limit the sharing of your personal data or require that you are informed of your specific privacy rights.

California Consumer Privacy Act

There are certain rights that California residents have under the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”). For example, the MSG Policy explains how California residents can exercise their rights under the CCPA to request that we: (1) provide certain personal information that we have collected about them during the past 12 months, along with related information described below, or (2) delete certain personal information that we have collected from them. Under the CCPA, “personal information” is information that identifies, relates to, or could reasonably be linked with a particular California resident or household. This information is referred to in this Notice as “Personal Data.”

If you are a California resident, you have the right to request that we disclose to you the following information covering the 12-month period prior to your request (“Access Request”):

• a. The categories of Personal Data we collected about you and the categories of sources from which we collected the Personal Data;
• b. The business or commercial purpose for collecting Personal Data about you;
• c. The categories of third parties to whom we disclosed Personal Data about you, and the categories of Personal Data disclosed;
• d. The specific pieces of Personal Data we collected about you; and
• e. Delete Personal Data we collected from you (“Deletion Request”).

California residents have the right to opt out of the sale of their information by businesses that sell Personal Data. The CCPA defines a “sale” as the disclosure of Personal Data for monetary or other valuable consideration.

You can obtain more information regarding CCPA and exercise your right to opt out of the sale of your personal data by calling us at (612) 333-5400.

In addition, you have the right to be free from discrimination by a business for exercising your rights under the CCPA.

11. Changes to Our Privacy Policy

We keep our Privacy Policy under regular review and we will place any updates on this webpage. We will also inform you of any changes via email or when you log-on after any change. Our Privacy Policy was last updated on 05/16/2023.

12. Useful Links

Federal Trade Commission: www.ftc.gov
World organization for market research – ESOMAR: www.esomar.org
Insights Association: www.insightsassociation.org
MSG Minnesota Inc. www.mnmsg.com