Personal Data Protection Policy

Personal Data Protection Policy (Rules of Procedure of the Committee of Moral and Ethics)

The National Center of Social Research (EKKE) is involved in social research based upon qualitative and/or quantitative methodologies. Personal data are collected exclusively for scientific research objectives.

Personal data are collected with the consent of individuals previously informed of their rights, and the objective(s) and types of the data collection and processing. When research requires the interviewing of children and minors (<16 years of age), consent of the legal guardian is required.

Contact of researchers with research subjects is random. Subjects may be contacted by telephone through a system of random sampling (i.e. via a specialized software that automatically generates telephone numbers); alternatively, their household /place of work may be selected and visited by researchers through a random choice of city block. They are previously questioned to ascertain whether they are compatible with the objectives of the research project, i.e. whether they fall within the research’s sample and have the attributes related to its aims.

Personal data are used exclusively for analysis and statistical processing, with the aim of obtaining results related to the issue under research, and only inasmuch as this cannot be achieved using anonymized data , as is usually the case in EKKE’s projects.

Following personal data collecting and completion of the fieldwork, identifiable data (name, address, telephone numbers) are abstracted from the questionnaires and kept for a specified and limited time, solely for reasons of validity and research quality control. In every case the data are destroyed three (3) months after the research project is concluded.

EKKE takes all necessary technical and organizational measures for safeguarding the confidentiality of personal data. All personnel involved in data collection are under contractual obligation to uphold the rules of confidentiality and legal processing of said data.

EKKE does not transmit personal data to third parties. EKKE warrants the full exercise of all related rights to the subjects of personal data for as long as these are preserved in identifiable form.

EKKE commits to and follows the provisions of the law on protection of personal data and especially the GDPR (ΕU2016/679), articles 21-27 of Law 4521/2018 , Chap E’, as well as article 26, paragraph 1, 2 and 4, article 31 and article 45 paragraph 2 of its Rules of Procedure (Ministerial Decision 88453, Government Gazette 2280/Β/11/06/2019) .

The Code of Ethics and the Internal Rules of Procedure of EKKE’s Ethics Committee can be found here.