Data Protection Update

By the time this issue of In Brief goes to press, new Data Protection rules will apply. The worry had been that they might impact on market research, but on closer examination it now looks as though qualitative research practitioners will be unaffected.

A cross-party committee, which included representatives from the AQRP, the MRS, ESOMAR and AURA, met mid-February to discuss the new rules and decide on a course of action. "The outcome," says Prosper Riley-Smith, the AQRP's representative, "is that the rules do not affect us as long as we follow those issued by ESOMAR and EFAMRO which have been distilled into the MRS Code of Conduct."

These protect the rights of respondents by not allowing tapes of groups to be sent out without the permission of those who took part.

The committee's next step is to appoint a representative, in the coming weeks, who will investigate the current attitude and position of the Data Protection Registrar towards market research before setting up a meeting with her.

Louella Miles
Copyright © Association for Qualitative Research, 2000