This privacy notice will help you understand how Blue Marble Research Limited uses and protects your personal data.

​​​

Your privacy is protected by law, and by our privacy policies. This page gives you an idea of how we use your data and the safeguards we put in place to protect it.

​

You can contact our Data Protection Officer via the DPO team at Evalian Limited, email: dpo@evalian.co.uk if you have any concerns or wish to exercise your rights. Alternatively, you can write to us at Blue Marble Research Ltd, 5 Merus Court, Meridian Business Park, Leicester, LE19 1RJ.

​

In April, Blue Marble merged with two other research agencies to become part of Navigator Insight Limited, a company partner of the Market Research Society.  This does not affect your rights.

​​

​

Our Promises:

​

We make the following promises about how we will treat this data:

​

• We will only collect data about you that is relevant and necessary and try and anonymise or use pseudonymisation for research purposes whenever practical;

• Your data will only be held on systems that meet compliance standards;

• Your data will only be accessed by those who need it and we will minimise the amount of data that is processed, wherever possible;

• We will only share personal data with third parties that meet our own privacy standards for the purposes of fulfilling contractual obligations unless either you have agreed to share data, or we are required to share it by law;

• We will always remember that it is your personal data, not ours. As such we will ensure complete transparency and openness with you wherever possible. 

• We respect your rights as outlined in the next section and will respond to all requests promptly

​

​

Your Rights:

 

​You have the following rights over the data we hold about you:

​

• Your right of access – You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information.

• Your right to rectification – You have the right to ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.

• Your right to erasure – You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.

• Your right to restriction of processing – You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.

• Your right to object to processing – You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.

• Your right to data portability – You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.

 

You can read more about your rights here.

 

Due to the nature of our activities and our need to take a snapshot of views and opinions at a particular moment in time, it is not possible to amend or delete any responses which you make in surveys, focus groups, or on online forums. Consent to use photography and video cannot be withdrawn following report publication.

​

If your opinions or data have been anonymised or pseudonymised the data you provided may be used for further research purposes. This does not impact your privacy rights.

​

If you would like to uphold your rights, then please contact our Data Protection Officer, Evalian Ltd, at dpo@evalian.co.uk.

​

​

How we collect your data:

​

We collect information about you:

​

• when you participate in market research such as surveys, focus groups, depth interviews, workshops, or online communities.

• request products or services;

• or otherwise provide us with information during our interactions with you​

 

Typically, this will mean that we may hold the following data;

​

• name

• demographic data such as your date of birth, gender, educational background; job role; income bracket;

• contact data such as email address; home and/or work postal address, postcode; phone number;

• image and/or voice captured through photography, filming, videotaping and/or audio recording;

• information you provide relating to your opinions, attitudes, experiences and use of certain products or services; and

• your bank account details (if you win a prize draw or are entitled to receive an incentive from us)

• Other information which may be collected during our interactions with you.

 

Please note participating in specific projects run by Blue Marble Research is completely voluntary and may involve you providing additional personal information. This may include special categories of data including information about your race, political opinions, trade union membership, health, criminal convictions, disability – if this is required for the research purposes.

​

 

​How we process your data:

​

If you choose to participate in our research, we will always ask you to consent to confirm you have understood and agree to the way in which we intend to process any information we may hold about you.

​

In general terms our activity is exclusively “Business to Business”. We typically use legitimate interest, contractual obligation or consent when processing data.

​

Data is processed/stored on encrypted systems on-premises and hosted cloud services such as Microsoft 365, Zoom and Netitude. You can request a list of our sub processors from us using the contact details above.

As such, some data will either be in UK and EU data centres or on US based servers. We may also process limited data in countries outside the UK or European Union from time to time in other aspects of our business.

​

Further to Section 119A of the Data Protection Act 2018 and noting Case C-311/18 in the European Court of Justice, if your data is transferred or processed outside of the UK or EEA where adequacy decisions are not in place, we ensure the safeguards of International Data Transfer Agreements (IDTAs) or Addendums are enforced.

​

Where this is not possible, we ensure that appropriate UK or European Standard Contractual Clauses are entered. For data transfer between the USA, we may rely on the Data Privacy Framework or the UK Extension Data Bridge.

We regularly review suppliers for data security compliance to ensure your data is safe and track where your data is held. All our processes are subject to various internal policies to ensure that your data privacy and security is upheld.​

​

​

Use of Large Language Models “LLM” / Artificial Intelligence “AI”

 

We utilise AI tools for a variety of purposes including transcription of participant sessions and analysis of responses as part of a project.

​

For example, we sometimes utilise CoLoop as a primary content analysis tool. We have nominated that data is stored in the UK, however, some of this processing occurs in the USA. You can see their sub processors HERE.

​

If we do use an AI tool for the purposes of research and analysis, your data will not be processed for the purposes of machine learning and the data will be encrypted in transit and at rest. We remove data from locations outside of the EU and UK following the completion of a project or sooner.

​

All LLMs in use go through a strict review process including a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) that complies with the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) advice.

 

​

What we use your Data for:

​

We use your personal information:

​

• To send you invitations to take part in our surveys, polls or activities and to update you on issues relating to those activities;

• To notify you if you win one of our prize draws and to enable us to issue these prizes, payments or rewards to you;

• To analyse the data for research purposes and to incorporate it into our databases;

• For general research and analysis purposes for our clients;

• To enable us to supply you with the services and information which you have requested;

• To deal with any complaints, queries or problems you experience;

 

Calls may be recorded for information holding, quality and training purposes.

​

Any marketing email sent by us allows you to opt out of receiving emails from us, except for the purposes of fulfilling any contractual arrangements.

​

Depending what data we collect and how the personal data has been obtained we will process based on Legitimate Interest, Contractual Obligation or Consent.

​

We ensure we have a “legal basis” to use your data for the purpose we have collected it for.

​

Where we use your information for our legitimate interests, we make sure we consider any potential impact that such use may have on you. Our legitimate interests don’t automatically override yours and we won’t use your information if we believe your interests should override ours unless we have other grounds to do so (such as your consent or a legal obligation).

​​

​

​Sharing Your Data:

​

Data is only shared with third parties in connection to the delivery of our services or marketing of our services.

Our website and other materials sent to you may contain links to other third-party websites. We may also offer buttons to social media that link to third party services. We’re not responsible for the content or your data privacy these sites provide through their tools or sites.

​

​

Data Retention:

​

The length of time we hold your personal information varies depending upon the type of information and its use. We will hold your personal information on our systems only for as long as necessary to provide research services to our clients, or for such other essential purposes such as complying with our legal obligations, resolving disputes, and enforcing our agreements.

​

The standard retention periods we use for personal information that we hold for the purposes of research is 2 months/8 weeks from the end date of the project in question. If you have any questions about our data retention, please email us.

​

​

Data Permissions:

​

Every marketing email sent from us allows you to opt out of receiving emails from us, except for the purposes of fulfilling any contractual arrangements.

​

You can also contact us at the email address above and request to opt out, view, export or delete your data.

If you request for your data to be deleted, your name and email address will be added to an exceptions list and all other data removed.

​

​

Legal Compliance:

​

We seek to uphold our legal obligations as covered by the Data Protection Act 2018, General Data Protection Regulation 2016 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations. Our Data Protection Authority is designated as the Information Commissioners Office (UK).

​

This Privacy Notice is reviewed on a regular basis and was last reviewed in July 2025.