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Insights - IA Code of Standards and Ethics for Marketing Research and Data Analytics

Nov 03, 2021

Summary

The Insights Association was formed from a merger of the Council of American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO) and the Marketing Research Association (MRA) in 2017 (IA, 2017). The new association released this set of standards and ethics two years later to present " the fundamental, overarching principles of ethics and professionalism" for the industry (IA, 2019). The document is organized as a set of four overarching principles - respect, transparency, integrity, compliance with law - and 13 sections describing in more detail the practice, duties and responsibilities of market research companies and their employees. It concludes with provisions for the enforcement of these principles.
Among the 13 sections is a 'duty of care' where the Association stipulates that researchers must "prioritize data subject privacy above business objectives, be honest, transparent, and straightforward in all interactions (and respect the rights and well-being of data subjects." Consent is required for research purposes, but in addition "such consent can enable non-research activities to utilize research techniques for certain types of customer satisfaction, user, employee and other experience activities."
Additional sections require that researchers be transparent about the research and give research subjects the choice not to participate. This includes passive data collection, such as collection of data by observing, measuring, or recording a data subject's actions or behavior. If consent is not possible, "researchers must have legally permissible grounds to collect the data and must remove or obscure any identifying characteristics as soon as operationally possible." There are also stipulations designed to ensure research quality and to ensure that communications about the research are accurate and not misleading.

Content

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