Informed Consent
Policy last updated: May 10, 2018
Performance Programs, Inc. ("PPI") requires that all individuals taking its assessments to provide their informed consent to take part in the assessment process. This is an essential concept that is part of all current and anticipated data protection based on legislative and best practices. In order for individuals taking the assessments to give their informed consent, they must understand the purpose of the assessment, how assessment data is to be used, and how the data will be protected. These protocols are described below and are binding on all PPI clients and individuals taking one or more of the assessments. Noncompliance with any of these measures will constitute grounds for termination of any agreements in place between PPI and the person(s) or entity(ies) involved. Before starting any assessments, PPI requires all individuals taking the assessments to provide their active and informed consent.
Consent
By starting the assessment(s), you expressly consent to the processing, including storage, copying, deletion, printing, transfer, collection and use, of the data you provide as set forth below. You are voluntarily giving consent and you may retract such consent at any time. PPI shall not be responsible for or subject to any liability resulting from any change to your potential or continued employment status that may result from either, (1) your taking of the assessment(s), or (2) your decision to retract your consent to the processing of the data you provide. Data will be stored in the United States.
Purpose
PPI surveys were created to provide information for leaders and managers about their performance and behavior to be used as feedback provided to and delivered by trained and certified professionals. Survey respondents are assumed to participate in the survey process voluntarily and are not responding under threat or coercion. The data provided by these surveys is intended to be used for personal and professional development.
Data Use and Storage
Individual survey responses will only be available to PPI and Performance Programs, Inc., its online business partner. Responses from multiple survey respondents will be scored, compiled, combined, and presented in a summary report. The responses provided by individual survey respondents will not be identified in the summary report as coming from those individuals, unless the respondent is clearly told that his or her responses will not be anonymous. The summary report will be made available to professionals trained, authorized, and/or certified by PPI or its affiliates to receive such information; these individuals will be responsible for providing the summary report to the individual being assessed in the survey process.
PPI will retain raw data until such time as a customer requests that the data be destroyed or PPI deems there to be no further value in retaining the data. Data may be used for research by PPI employees or its external research partners; however all data used for research will be anonymous-all identifying information will be removed. All professionals trained, authorized, and/or certified by PPI, all PPI contractors, and all PPI-sponsored researchers are responsible for complying with national and international protocols covering data use and storage.
Confidentiality
While your name will be associated with your assessment to receive individualized reports where applicable, no one will have access to the identified assessment results, unless you choose to share them. Responses from multiple survey respondents may be scored, compiled, combined and presented in a summary statistics. The responses provided by individual assessment respondents will not be identified in reports or results as coming from those individuals, unless the respondent is clearly told that his or her responses will not be anonymous. Please note that all comments, however, are reproduced verbatim in the feedback report and are not checked for wording and/or grammar. All raters should therefore take care not to say things which would compromise anonymity, e.g. referring to a situation only you know about, etc. Reports will be made available to trained, authorized, and/or accredited professionals to receive such information; these individuals will be responsible for providing the report to the individual being evaluated in the assessment process.
Access to Data
PPI only provides summary reports of results of the feedback survey process to professionals trained, authorized, certified, and/or employed by PPI. Dissemination of the summary report of survey results is the sole responsibility of these individuals.
Rights of Access
You have the right to obtain from PPI confirmation as to whether or not your personal data is being processed, for what purpose, and to whom this personal data may be disclosed to. Upon request, PPI will provide you with your personal data and will do so within 30 days. PPI will provide the personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable form. More complex cases may need an extended amount of time.
Rights to Be Forgotten
Retraction of consent to the processing of the data you provided can be requested and such data will be deleted from PPI's systems and will do so within 30 days. If you choose to retract your consent to the processing of your data after PPI has provided your assessment results to the requesting organization, PPI shall have no obligation to ensure the deletion of any data that may be contained in such assessment results. In addition, PPI shall not be responsible for or subject to any liability resulting from any change to your potential or continued employment status that may result from your decision to withdraw your consent.
Primary Security
In order to safeguard individual survey results, the online survey contains only the survey items, not the survey scoring programs (which are held by PPI and its contractors). It is impossible to process or score results through the website. Results can only be processed by downloading the raw data, decrypting identity codes, and scoring these data with appropriate programs. Until that time, survey responses are merely alphanumeric strings that contain no identifying personal information and cannot be linked to the person being assessed or the person providing the assessment.
Secondary Security
Individuals completing surveys are provided a secret username and password to access website surveys. PPI uses secure methods to transfer a summary report of the survey results to professionals trained, authorized, and/or certified by PPI after the completion of surveys.
Risks
There is always a possible risk of breach of confidentiality when data is manually manipulated or compromised due to a malicious data intrusion. To protect confidentiality, the following procedures will be used: (1) identifiers will be removed from the data, (2) data will be stored on password-protected servers, and (3) only authorized research team members will have access to the data. As with any assessment, there is a slight risk that you may be disappointed or upset by your results. However, the report, where applicable, is designed to help you identify potential areas in which you may need improvement. Please understand that your individual information is not shared outside of your own personal development organization. You will, however, have the opportunity to share and discuss this with your mentor, coach, or any member of the team that you feel comfortable with. In the case of an unauthorized data breech, you will be notified without undue delay.
Use of Cookies
When you use and access our websites we may place a number of cookies files in your web browser. We use first and third party cookies for several reasons. Some cookies are required for technical reasons in order for our websites to operate and we refer to these as "essential" or "strictly necessary" cookies. Other cookies also enable us to track device properties of our users to enhance the experience on our websites. We do not use these cookies for social media, marketing or advertising reasons.
Contact
Should you have other questions or concerns about the Informed Consent or privacy policies, please call us at 1-860-388-9422 or send us an email at surveys@performanceprograms.com.