Privacy and data handling

This page describes how we handle the personal information that passes through a paper survey: the respondent list you give us, the completed forms that come back, and the data and images we deliver. It's written to be quoted in an ethics application or a procurement submission.

Everything stays in Australia.

Creative Data Solutions operates from Vermont, Victoria. Form design, mail assembly, receipt of returns, scanning, verification, keying and data delivery happen at our Melbourne premises. Printing, and usually personalisation, are carried out by Australian print partners. All data is stored and processed within Australia. No stage of the work, and no copy of your data, goes offshore.

What personal information we handle.

Depending on the job, we may handle:

• A respondent list: names and postal addresses, and sometimes a respondent ID, a site or group code, or a wave number, supplied by you so that we can personalise and mail the survey pack and so that reminders reach only those who haven't responded.
• Completed survey forms: the responses themselves, which may be identifiable through a respondent ID, a barcode or the answers given.
• Undeliverable mail: envelopes returned by Australia Post, which carry the name and address we printed.
• Online-complete IDs: where the survey is mixed mode, the IDs of people you tell us have completed online, used only to keep them out of the reminder mailing.

We do not obtain personal information from any other source, and we do not use it for any purpose other than running your survey.

Transfer.

Respondent lists are transferred to us through a secure route we provide. Completed forms reach us by Reply Paid mail addressed to our premises, or by bulk delivery from sites you have distributed to. Data files and PDF images are delivered to you by secure download.

Access.

Your list and your returned forms are handled by Creative Data Solutions staff, for the purposes of the job only.

Personalisation, including printing names, addresses, IDs and barcodes onto forms and letters, is usually carried out by our Australian print partner, and for some jobs at our premises. Where the print partner personalises, it receives only the fields needed to print: name, address and ID. It receives them under a confidentiality arrangement, for that purpose only, and does not retain them once the job is printed.

Australia Post handles the sealed envelopes in the ordinary course of delivery and does not receive your list.

Security.

• Our premises are secured and access-controlled, with entry restricted to authorised staff. The office is locked outside business hours and protected by a monitored alarm system.
• All data is stored and processed within Australia.
• Every user has unique credentials.
• Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Encrypted backups are held on site and off site.
• Retention periods are defined, and both digital data and paper are securely destroyed at the end of them.

Retention.

• Completed forms are held for three months after we deliver your data, or for a longer period if you ask us to, so that any query about a value can be checked against the original page.
• Electronic data and PDF images are held for the same period after delivery.
• Respondent lists, online-complete IDs and undeliverable mail are held for the duration of the job, including any reminder wave.

Destruction.

At the end of the retention period, completed forms are securely shredded. If you would rather keep the originals, we return them to you instead; tell us at the start of the job. Electronic data and images are deleted at the end of the same period. Respondent lists, online-complete IDs and undeliverable mail are destroyed at the end of the job.

Privacy law.

Creative Data Solutions handles personal information in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles, and enters into the data-handling and confidentiality terms your organisation, your contract or your ethics committee requires.

If we become aware of a security incident affecting personal information we hold for you, we will notify you.

What we ask of you.

You remain responsible for the collection of the personal information in your respondent list, for the privacy statement on your survey, and for any ethics approval your project requires. We will print whatever privacy wording your approval requires on the form and the letter, and we can supply the paragraph below for your application.

Text you can use.

The following paragraph describes our role and may be adapted for an ethics or privacy application:

Paper survey materials will be designed, printed, mailed, received and scanned by Creative Data Solutions, a Melbourne-based survey processing provider. The respondent list will be transferred to Creative Data Solutions by secure transfer and used only to personalise and mail the survey pack and any reminder. Personalisation may be carried out by Creative Data Solutions' Australian print partner under a confidentiality arrangement. Completed forms will be returned by Reply Paid mail to Creative Data Solutions' premises in Vermont, Victoria, where responses will be captured by optical mark recognition and operator verification. Data will be delivered to the research team by secure download. Completed forms and electronic data will be held by Creative Data Solutions, encrypted at rest, for three months after delivery [or: for the period agreed with the research team], then securely destroyed [or: returned to the research team]. No personal information will be transferred outside Australia.

Questions about data handling.

03 9873 0050 · info@creativedatasolutions.com.au

Entity

Creative Data Solutions Pty Ltd (ACN 128 769 862), trustee for the Creative Data Solutions Unit Trust (ABN 52 168 700 541).