The Association of Market & Social Research Organisations (AMSRO) has developed its own privacy code for members following the release of the new Privacy Amendment Act on March 12, 2014.
Australian Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim said: “The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner doesn’t want to see organisations quickly making the absolute minimum changes, and then sitting back in the knowledge that they have just met compliance requirements. Organisations should be striving for continual improvement in the privacy space.”
AMSRO is currently the only industry body seeking to register a non-mandatory Australian Privacy Principles (APP) Code.
AMSRO’s Market and Social Research Privacy Code 2014 has now moved to public consultation as a draft code, once registered the code will operate in addition to the new Privacy Amendment Act.
AMSRO President Nicola Hepenstall said; “With the recent launch of our Australian-first Trustmark that ensures privacy, ethical and quality standards, it was important that we redeveloped our own industry code to reflect the new Privacy Act. AMSRO pioneered its own privacy code for members in 2003, which won an Australian Privacy Award in 2009.
“Our industry is unique because AMSRO members are co-regulated under the privacy code with AMSRO as the administrator and the Privacy Commissioner as the adjudicator of the Code.”
The main section of the Code sets out how the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) in the Privacy Act are to be applied and complied with by AMSRO members in relation to the collection, retention, use and disclosure of personal information about the subjects of and participants in market and social research.
The Market and Social Research Privacy Code 2014 is a customised version of the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) in the Privacy Act (1988).
The Code imposes some additional requirements including:
• participation by research subjects in market and social research as carried out by AMSRO members is always voluntary
• market and social researchers use and disclose the information collected only for research purposes.
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