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Privacy Notice for participants in Growing Up in Digital Europe (GUIDE) UK Pilot

Study Reference: 25-048044-01

This survey and your personal data

Ipsos UK, University College London (UCL) and Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) are inviting you to take part in the Growing Up in Digital Europe (GUIDE) UK Age 8 pilot study.  This study is about children’s health and wellbeing. It will also help us test the survey questions and methods to make sure they work well. GUIDE is Europe’s first study comparing children’s health and wellbeing in different countries.

This Privacy Notice explains who we are, the personal data we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, and what your legal rights are.

About UCL, MMU and Ipsos UK

  • UCL is a leading UK university know for conducting long-term studies to understand how different factors affect people’s health and wellbeing over time. You can find more information about UCL here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/
  • MMU is a leading UK university and collaborator on the broader European part of the GUIDE survey. You can find more information about MMU here: https://www.mmu.ac.uk/
  • Ipsos UK Limited is a specialist research agency, commonly known as ‘Ipsos UK’. Ipsos UK is part of the Ipsos worldwide group of companies, and a member of the Market Research Society. Ipsos UK have been appointed by UCL to conduct the fieldwork for the GUIDE UK pilot study.

How did you get my details

If you are living in England, your child was chosen at random from the National Pupil Database held by the Department for Education. The Department for Education gave us special permission to access the names and addresses of the selected children in Year 4 so Ipsos could contact them via their parents/legal guardians. 

In Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, families are being invited to take part through their child’s school. Parents and legal guardians of children in Year 4 (or equivalent) are provided with information about the study and asked to register their interest in taking part via a brief online survey (hosted by Ipsos) which will collect their contact details.

Personal data that we collect about you and your child

Most of the personal data that we hold is collected during the survey and comes directly from you (e.g.,survey responses). We may also hold, if your give us your permission, information provided by other organisations (e.g., government departments and agencies such as NHS organisations, Department for Work and Pensions) as part of our linked data programme.

Access to your personal data is carefully controlled. Personal data, or personal information, means any information about you that can identify you directly or indirectly including:

  • Information that directly identifies you such as your name/your child’s name, contact details (for you and your child. We also hold other personal information about you and your child (e.g., sex, date of birth, nationality).
  • Sensitive or ‘special category personal data’ about you. This includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation, or information about your health. Access to this data is strictly controlled.

What is our legal basis for processing your personal data?

UCL require a legal basis to process your personal data. UCL’s legal basis for processing your personal data under Article 6(1) (e) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is ‘public task’, for “the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller”. If you wish to withdraw your consent at any time, please see the section below covering ‘Your Rights’.

Do I have to take part?

No – taking part is entirely voluntary and you do not need to provide a reason if you don’t want to take part.

What will I be asked to do?

  • Taking part involves an interviewer from Ipsos, an independent research company, visiting your home. If you decide to take part, an interviewer from Ipsos will be visiting your home. The parent/legal guardian interview will take approximately 60 minutes to complete and the interview with your 8-year-old child will take about 30-40 minutes to complete.
  • The parent interview includes questions about your family, your child’s activities, and covers some sensitive topics including pregnancy and birth as well as partner relationships which can be completed privately on a computer that will be provided by the interviewer.
  • The child interview focuses on their experiences as a child and their family life. It does cover some sensitive topics like wellbeing and bullying.

How will UCL, MMU and Ipsos UK use any personal data including survey responses you provide?

  • Ipsos UK will keep your contact details in the strictest confidence in accordance with this Privacy Policy and use them solely for this research.
  • Your personal details – such as your name and address – will always be stored separately from your survey answers – and will never be shared outside of the direct study team.
  • Ipsos will delete your contact details at the end of this research project and they will thereafter be stored securely by UCL.
  • The answers from the survey will be shared securely in a de-identified format (without your name or contact details) for researchers who are conducting legitimate research on children in the public interest. It will not be possible to identify you in any published results.
  • If you decide you want to withdraw from the study and want us to remove your data, then please get in touch with us within 30 days from the end of the interview.

Personal information that UCL collect from other sources

With your permission, we would like to add information about you and your child from government records, such as those from the Department for Education, the National Health Service and the Department of Health and Social Care alongside the interview.

Government bodies maintain records on education, health, and social care. By combining this with your survey data, we can enhance our research with details like exam results or hospital visits, which are often difficult to recall. This is common practice in many surveys , but we need your permission to access this information.

Further information about this is available here:

How your data will be shared

  • UCL and MMU will be using a supplier organisation to assist with the recruitment, fieldwork, programming of the questionnaire and hosting the data from the GUIDE survey. We will need to disclose your personal data to these supplier organisations for that purpose. These supplier organisations are:
    • Ipsos UK Limited – commonly known as ‘Ipsos UK’
      • Ipsos UK is a specialist research agency who will be conducting the fieldwork on behalf of UCL and MMU. For England, Ipsos UK will receive your personal information from the Department of Education as well as personal information provided during the short survey to indicate your interest in participating in the survey if you live in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. With your permission, Ipsos will share your contact details with UCL. .
      • For more information about Ipsos UK you can visit their website here: https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk
    • CenterData
      • Centerdata is an independent non-profit research institute, located on the campus of Tilburg University (TiU).
      • For more information about CenterData you can visit their website here: https://en.centerdata.nl/

How will Ipsos UK ensure your personal information is secure?

  • Ipsos UK takes its information security responsibilities seriously and applies various precautions to ensure your information is protected from loss, theft or misuse. Security precautions include appropriate physical security of offices and controlled and limited access to computer systems.
  • Ipsos UK has regular internal and external audits of its information security controls and working practices and is accredited to the International Standard for Information Security, ISO 27001.

Does this survey use Cookies or similar code?

  • Some online surveys collect information through the use of ‘cookies’. These are small files stored on your computer. These files are used as sparingly as possible and only for quality control, validation and, more importantly, to prevent us sending you reminders for an online survey you have already completed. It is possible for you to delete ‘cookies’ or to prevent their use by adjusting the browser settings on your computer.
  • 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. We do not capture any other information from your computer.

How long will we retain your personal data and identifiable responses?

  • UCL will keep your data for as long as is required for the purposes of this study and our statutory and legal obligations. We will review the data that we hold whenever we receive an individual rights request from you. Further information on how long we keep records for is included in our records retention schedule.
  • Ipsos UK will only retain your data in a way that can identify you for as long as is necessary to support the research project and findings and for as long as is contractually allowed. In practice, this means that once we have satisfactorily reported the research findings to the client (UCL), we will securely remove your personal and/or identifying data from our systems.

Your rights

  • You have the right to access your personal data within the limited period that Ipsos UK holds it.
  • If you want to contact the data controller about data they hold about you, please see the UCL’s contact details below.
  • Providing responses to this survey is entirely voluntary and is done with your consent. You have the right to withdraw your consent at any time consent whilst we hold your personal data at an identifiable level.
  • You also have the right to request from us the deletion or erasure of the personal information we hold about you.
  • You also have the right to rectify any incorrect or out-of-date personal data about you which we may hold.
  • If you want to exercise your rights, please contact Ipsos UK at the details provided below.
  • If you have any complaints, we would appreciate it, if you give us the opportunity to resolve any issue first, by contacting us as set out below. You are, however, always entitled to the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), if you have concerns on how we have processed your personal data. You can find details about how to contact the Information Commissioner’s Office at Make a complaint | ICO.

Where will your personal data be held & processed?

All of your personal data used and collected for this survey will be stored and processed in the United Kingdom and the European Union.

How can you contact UCL and Ipsos UK about this survey and/or your personal data?

Contact UCL

By Email:
data-protection@ucl.ac.uk

By Post:
GUIDE UK Pilot Study
Data Protection Officer
University College London
Gower Street
London
WC1E 6BT

Contact Ipsos UK: 

By Email:
UK-PA-GUIDE@ipsos.com with 25-048044-01 GUIDE in the email subject line

Post:

25-048044-01 GUIDE
Compliance Department
Ipsos (market research) Limited
3 Thomas More Square,
London E1W 1YW,
United Kingdom

Any questions?

To find out more about the study, please visit: GUIDEstudy.ipsos.com.

You can contact the study team directly on: