Privacy Policy

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

• Identification Data - e.g. your name, age, date of birth & gender, etc.
• Contact Data - e.g. your phone number, email address, postal address, etc.
• Data relating to your financial and economic situation - e.g. annual income / wages, tax situation, etc.
• Work Life Data - e.g. your profession and/or professional background, education, training, awards, etc.
• Electronic Connection Data - e.g. details about your computer, IP address, logs (See Paragraph 4 and 5)
• Photos and Videos
• Special Categories of Personal Data or Sensitive Personal Data (we will only collect this with your prior explicit consent) - e.g. your race and ethnicity, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, genetic data, biometric data, data concerning health, data concerning sex life or sexual orientation, etc.
• Verbatims 

We collect the personal data you provide by email and in completing our recruitment survey when you decide to join Shopmetrics and Sassie ("panels"). We also collect the personal data you provide when you voluntarily complete any of the surveys, participate in any other panel activities, email us, or when you provide feedback, comments or other personal data on our panel members' website.

In some instances, as part of our research, we may ask you to provide certain sensitive personal data, for example, revealing your racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade-union membership or data concerning health or sex life. 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 data, being passed to our research clients for further in-depth research analysis.

Our primary reason for collecting personal data 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 fulfil our obligations to you under this contract and invite you to appropriate surveys, we need to collect, process and profile the personal data requested during recruitment or which you may subsequently add to your profile on the panel website, which is processed using automated methods. This personal data is also required in order for us to send you any rewards and be able to contact you concerning any surveys.

We also collect additional personal data from you with your consent, including when you respond to any survey invitations that we send you. Your response and participation in any survey is entirely voluntary. There may also be situations where we seek additional or explicit consent from you, where appropriate or required.

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

We will use the personal data you provide to:

• Fulfil the terms of our contract with you.
• Keep a record of your membership in this panel.
• Send you invitations to participate in surveys or other panel activities that are relevant to you, based on the information you provide or may provide.
• Send you a SMS message to your mobile phone number containing a verification code to verify your application and activate your panelist account;
• Append your existing personal data to your responses for any surveys in which you participate. This may include personal data such as geographical location or age, which will be appended to your responses for analysis and producing anonymous, statistical research results.
• 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 data to the client that is sponsoring the research. The client will only use this information for research purposes, which will be explained in the relevant survey.
• Where you have explicitly consented to our providing your personal data to the client, the client may also contact you, using the personal data you provided, to invite you to further participate in research they conduct.
• To create anonymous, statistical profiles of panel membership based on the personal data provided by panel members.
• With your consent, to pass your information to other Ipsos Group companies so that they may invite you to participate in research studies they are carrying out and that may be relevant to you;
• Send you email newsletters, announcement or other communications.
• Where you agree to take part in a product test to arrange for such product to be sent to you.
• For points redemption (only if applied) and incentive fulfilment

As part of our wider research and internet usage research studies, we may also:

• Send you invitations to participate in research on your smartphone via text message. You can opt-out of this research activity by emailing mystery.shopping@ipsos.com with the subject line 'No survey invites through text message'.

We may also send your personal data to our sub-contractors or affiliated companies who carry out some work on our behalf, control and responsibility, for data hosting or as described in Paragraph 5. Some of these sub-contractors may be based outside of North America; however, they are required to abide by the same data privacy legal requirements and security arrangements as Ipsos and will be subject to appropriate safeguards (such as standard data protection clauses or EU-US Privacy Shield), a description of which can be obtained by contacting us as set forth in Paragraph 9.

We will NEVER use your personal data for any purpose other than for market research or as otherwise described in this policy. Other than in relation to these panels (like participating in further surveys), we will NOT try to sell you anything, nor use your personal data for marketing or advertising purposes. Furthermore, we will not pass your personal data to third parties for marketing or advertising purposes.

Access to your personal data will be limited to only those Ipsos staff involved in these panels or who need access to support the systems used for these panels, such as the online survey and research data analysis systems or panel portals. This may include staff in:

• Other Ipsos Group companies involved in this research, some of which may be outside North America.
• We may also share your personal data with our subsidiaries and affiliates and with service providers who perform services for us. We do not authorize our service providers to use or disclose any information, including personal data, except to perform services on our behalf or to comply with legal requirements.

We will take all reasonable steps to ensure that any personal data we process is accurate, adequate, relevant and not excessive, given the purpose for which it was obtained. We will not process personal data obtained for one purpose for any unconnected purpose unless you have provided explicit consent for this.

In certain very specific cases, such as after you agree to take part in a product test or when you place an order to redeem prizes or awards, if applicable, in order to process the delivery of such item, Ipsos may forward your personal data or survey answers to another market research institute or supplier, as applicable, and may forward your personal data to an end client.

For more information about our panels, panel membership or information related to your membership in our panels, please contact our panel support team as provided in Paragraph 9.

Yes, the panel online surveys and panel websites do use 'cookies'. These are small files stored on your computer. These files are only used where necessary for the survey or portal to work properly. Specifically, in respect of cookies, further details of what cookies are can be found by visiting www.aboutcookies.org.

By joining our panels 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 while taking part in our online research activities as outlined below.

We also automatically capture information about your operating system, display settings and browser type in order to ensure that the survey questionnaire is delivered in a form suited to the software your computer is using. If you participate in the community using a mobile device (e.g. tablet or smartphone), we also capture the type and brand (e.g. iPhone). We do not capture any other information from your computer, nor do we track or collect information outside of your participation in the panels. We do not link this automatically-collected data to any other information that we collect about users.

Find out more about Cookies by visiting https://ishopforipsos.com/en-US/page/detail/cookies.

We may use digital fingerprint technology, also known as "Machine Identification" or "digital fingerprint", to gather certain information about your computer hardware and software, for example, IP address, monitor display settings, type of browser used, the operating system of your computer, 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 is not tied to any of your personal data but is stored separately on secured servers and only used for our legitimate interests of quality control, fraud prevention, preventing members from completing any survey more than once and for other online research quality purposes.

How long we may retain personal data about you will depend upon the purposes for which the personal data was collected, whether you have requested the deletion of your personal data, and whether any legal obligations require the retention of your personal data (for example, tax and accounting purposes). We generally will not retain personal data any longer than is necessary to fulfil the purpose(s) for which the personal data was collected. If you earn points, we will retain personal data about you and the points earned for a period of one (1) year beyond the end of your membership in order to fulfil any reward. Once you redeem your points for a reward, we will retain the personal data specifically required for reward fulfilment for a period of two (2) years.

You are entitled, at any time, to ask us the following:

To exercise any of these rights, please contact our Data Protection Team, contacting us as set forth in Paragraph 9, with "Shopmetrics" or "Sassie" as the subject line.

We take our responsibilities to keep your personal data 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 data. As we collect personal data, we have implemented a personal data protection system that incorporates all legally-required measures.

As part of our commitment to the security of your information, Ipsos has regular internal and external audits of its information security, and is certified to be compliant with the requirements of the International Standards for Information Security ISO 27001, Market, Opinion and Social Research ISO 20252, and Quality Management ISO 9001.

If you have any questions about this panel or how your personal data will be used, please contact the study team. They can be contacted by email sent to mystery.shopping@ipsos.com.

Or by letter sent to "Shopmetrics" or "Sassie" Team

Ipsos-Insight, LLC
501 Merritt 7
Norwalk, CT 06851
United States

If you have any questions or require further information this privacy policy, Ipsos' compliance with data protection laws or information we may hold about you, please contact our Data Protection Department. They can be contacted by email sent to dpo.usa@ipsos.com with "Shopmetrics" or "Sassie" as the subject line or by phone 8339311523.

Ipsos Insight, LLC
Attn: US Data Protection Officer
501 Merritt 7
Norwalk, CT 06851
United States

Please quote your email address used for "Shopmetrics" or "Sassie" in your email or letter.

We keep this 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 _____, 2025.

Ipsos Group: www.ipsos.com 

Insights Association: www.InsightsAssociation.org 

ESOMAR: www.esomar.org

Advertisement:

Operations:

Validation:

Payment: