m-panels

Privacy Policy

Protecting the individual's privacy on the Internet is crucial to the future of Internet-based business and the move toward a true Internet economy. We have created this Privacy Statement to demonstrate our firm commitment to the individual`s right to data protection and privacy. This Privacy Statement outlines how we handle information that we collect that can be used to directly or indirectly identify an individual ("Personal Data"). This Privacy Statement also provides information regarding how you can access and update your Personal Data and make certain choices about how your Personal Data is used by us. This Privacy Statement has come into effect from March 16, 2020.

WHO WE ARE

m360 Research panel (www.m-panels.com) is owned and operated by M-Panels Research Services Pvt. Ltd., a leading international marketing research and marketing consulting company in Bangalore, India. We subscribe to the privacy, confidentiality, and ethics policies of these professional marketing and marketing research organizations:

  • European Pharmaceutical Market Research Association (EphMRA)
  • World Association of Research Professionals (ESOMAR)

M-Panels Research Services Pvt. Ltd. (and m360 research) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the M3 Group, after it’s acquisition by M3 on March 16, 2020. m360 Research is a global research partner in the Healthcare and Life Sciences industry, enabling researchers and marketers to connect with healthcare professionals.


A. General Information

When does this Privacy Statement apply? This Privacy Statement applies to Personal Data that you provide to m360 Research and/or its affiliates or its group entities ("m360 Research") through m-panels.com (the "Website") or through subscription of our products and/or services, or by joining the m360 Research community on social media websites, or which is provided to one of our marketing partners, or which is provided through other engagements like telephone calls, chat sessions and social media with m-panels or which is derived from the Personal Data as outlined below.

The use of and any information that is gathered by cookies or other web tracking technologies on the Website is subject to the disclosures and options provided by the Cookie Policy.

Data Controller. The data controller of the Website is m360 Research, 41, Lavelle Road, Bangalore - 560 001, Karnataka, India. Where a registration form is presented on this Website, the data controller may vary depending on the actual offering or the purpose of the data collection but it is in any case displayed on the individual registration form's privacy statement. m360 Research's data protection officer is Alistair D’Gama (dpo@m360research.com) and any queries that you may have regarding this Privacy Statement may be addressed to the above email address.

What Personal Data does m360 Research collect? m360 Research may collect the following information from you, through your use of the Website during the Website registration process, during the survey participation process, or by joining the m360 Research community on social media websites, or which is provided to one of our marketing partners or through engagement with m360 Research:

  • We collect (i) name; (ii) title; (iii) email address; (iv) company name and (v) phone number.
  • We also collect the IP address of the computer you used at the time you registered and confirmed your registration.
  • We also gather information on your practice such as education, specialty, number of patients, surgeries performed, type of practice, and your Internet speed, and computer capabilities to help us pre-screen members for certain surveys.
  • Additional information may also be requested when you participate in surveys.
  • Recordings of telephone calls (after informing you accordingly during that call) and chat sessions

None of the information collected in surveys is reported by the names or addresses of members. Your individual information is always placed into anonymous, statistical summaries that are used in Market Research. No one outside of m360 Research will ever know how you personally answered any of the questions in our surveys.

Cookies. Additionally, m360 Research may also collect cookies through your use of the Website. Cookies are text files that m360 Research may place in your computer browser to store your preferences. Cookies are used to record various aspects of your visit and assist us in providing you with uninterrupted service. One of the primary purposes of cookies is to store your preferences and other information on your computer in order to save you time by eliminating the need to repeatedly enter the same information and to display your personalized content. However, no personal information identifying the user is collected nor any data capture mechanisms is employed. You may change your cookie settings at any time, on your browser.

What do we do with your Personal Data? We will process the Personal Data provided hereunder only as set out in this Privacy Statement. Further information can be found in Sections B. and C. below. (1) Where the processing of your Personal Data is based on a statutory permission, you can find information on which Personal Data We are processing or using for which purposes in Section B below. (2) Where consent for the processing of your Personal Data is required you can find further information in Section C. below.

Duration of processing of Personal Data. Where m360 Research is processing and using your Personal Data as permitted by law (see B. below) or under your consent (see C. below), m360 Research will store your Personal Data (i) only for as long as is required to fulfil the purposes for which the Personal Data was collected. If, at any time, you object to use of your Personal Data (where m360 Research has a legitimate interest in using your Personal Data), or you withdraw your consent (as provided under Section C), m360 Research will stop processing of such Personal Data. However, where m360 Research is required by mandatory law to retain your Personal Data longer or where your Personal Data is required for m360 Research to assert or defend against legal claims, m360 Research will retain your Personal Data until the end of the relevant retention period or until the claims in question have been settled.

Why am I required to provide Personal Data? As a general principle, your granting of any consent and your provision of any Personal Data hereunder is entirely voluntary; there are generally no detrimental effects on you if you choose not to consent or to provide Personal Data. However, there are circumstances in which m-panels cannot take action without certain Personal Data, for example because this Personal Data is required to process your orders or provide you with access to a web offering, newsletter or participate in a particular survey. In these cases, it will unfortunately not be possible for m-panels to provide you with what you request without the relevant Personal Data. At every instance when we are collecting Personal Data from you, you will be informed of the purposes for which such Personal Data will be used, and the option to opt-out of providing the information or any of the purposes for which your Personal Data might be used.

Where will your Personal Data be processed? As part of a global group of companies, m360 Research has affiliates and third-party service providers within as well as outside of the European Economic Area (the "EEA"). As a consequence, whenever m360 Research is using or otherwise processing your Personal Data for the purposes set out in this Privacy Statement, m360 Research may transfer your Personal Data to countries outside of the EEA including to such countries in which a statutory level of data protection applies that is not comparable to the level of data protection within the EEA. Whenever such transfer occurs, it is based on the Standard Contractual Clauses (according to EU Commission Decision 87/2010/EC or any future replacement) in order to contractually provide that your Personal Data is subject to a level of data protection that applies within the EEA. You may obtain a redacted copy (from which commercial information and information that is not relevant has been removed) of such Standard Contractual Clauses by sending a request to dpo@m360research.com.

Data subject's rights.

Right to request for correction or deletion of Personal Data. You can request from m360 Research at any time information about which Personal Data m360 Research processes about you and the correction or deletion of such Personal Data. Please note, however, that m360 Research can delete your Personal Data only if there is no statutory obligation or prevailing right of m360 Research to retain it. Kindly note that if you request that m360 Research delete your Personal Data, you will not be able to continue to use any m360 Research service that requires m360 Research's use of your Personal Data.

Right to request for a copy of the Personal Data. If m360 Research uses your Personal Data based on your consent or to perform a contract with you, you may further request from m360 Research a copy of the Personal Data that you have provided to m360 Research.

You have the right to contact us to find out what information we hold about you or to access or correct information that we hold about you. Please send an email to dpo@m360research.com with the details below

  • First Name
  • Last Name
  • Date of Birth
  • Gender
  • Current address (must NOT be a PO box address)
  • Telephone number
  • Email address
  • Relationship with the data subject

Right to request for m360 Research to stop processing. Furthermore, you can request from m360 Research that m360 Research restricts your Personal Data from any further processing in any of the following events: (i) you state that the Personal Data m360 Research has about you is incorrect, (but only for as long as m360 Research requires to check the accuracy of the relevant Personal Data), (ii) there is no legal basis for m360 Research processing your Personal Data and you demand that m360 Research restricts your Personal Data from further processing, (iii) m360 Research no longer requires your Personal Data but you claim that you require m360 Research to retain such data in order to claim or exercise legal rights or to defend against third party claims or (iv) in case you object to the processing of your Personal Data by m360 Research (based on m360 Research's legitimate interest as further set out in B. below) for as long as it is required to review as to whether m360 Research has a prevailing interest or legal obligation in processing your Personal Data.

Please direct any such request to dpo@m360research.com.

Right to lodge a complaint. If you believe that m360 Research is not processing your Personal Data in accordance with the requirements set out herein or applicable EEA data protection laws, you can at any time lodge a complaint with the data protection authority of the EEA country in which you live or with the data protection authority of the country or state in which m360 Research has its registered seat.

Right to have the Personal Data transferred If at any time you wish to have your Personal Data transferred to another controller, you may contact us to request for such transfer.

Use of this website by children. This website is not intended for anyone under the age of 16 years. If you are younger than 16, you may not register with or use this website. If at any time, m360 Research is intimated that it has collected the data of users below 16 years or has provided services to such person, we will at once delete the data from our records and stop the provision of services.

Links to other websites. This website may contain links to foreign (meaning non-m360 Research Group companies) websites. m360 Research is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of websites outside the m360 Research Group of companies. Therefore, we recommend that you carefully read the privacy statements of such foreign sites.


B. Where m360 Research uses your Personal Data based on applicable Law

In the following cases, m360 Research Panel is permitted to process your Personal Data under the applicable data protection law.

We use information about you, your educational and professional data to determine whether you qualify to participate in a survey.

We use your email address to invite you to complete surveys and to notify you of news regarding the m360 Research Panel Operations.

We use your name and address to send you incentives to which you are entitled.

We use personal information gathered during surveys to analyse the survey results.

We use your personal information to verify you are who you say you are, and live where you say you live. Any evidence of false or dishonest information will result in the permanent loss of your membership.

We may use your contact information, such as email address, registration data and IP address to verify the opt-in nature of our email list when asked to do so by an Internet Service provider.

Usage of Personal Data. Furthermore, we communicate on a regular basis by email with users who subscribe to our services for the purposes as provided below, and we may also communicate by phone to resolve customer complaints or investigate suspicious transactions.

We may use your email address to confirm your opening of an account, to send you notice of payments, to send you information about changes to our products and services, and to send notices and other disclosures as required by law. Generally, users cannot opt out of these communications, which are not marketing-related but merely required for the relevant business relationship. With regard to marketing-related types of communication (i.e. emails and phone calls), m360 Research will (i) where legally required only provide you with such information after you have opted in and (ii) provide you the opportunity to opt out if you do not want to receive further marketing-related types of communication from us. You can opt out of these at any time at unsubscribe page

Ensuring compliance. m360 Research and its products, technologies, and services are subject to the export laws of various countries including, without limitation, those of the European Union and its member states, and of the United States of America. You acknowledge that, pursuant to the applicable export laws, trade sanctions, and embargoes issued by these countries, m360 Research is required to take measures to prevent entities, organizations, and parties listed on government-issued sanctioned-party lists from accessing certain products, technologies, and services through m360 Research's websites or other delivery channels controlled by m360 Research. This may include (i) automated checks of any user registration data as set out herein and other information a user provides about his or her identity against applicable sanctioned-party lists; (ii) regular repetition of such checks whenever a sanctioned-party list is updated or when a user updates his or her information; (iii) blocking of access to m360 Research's services and systems in case of a potential match; and (iv) contacting a user to confirm his or her identity in case of a potential match.

Furthermore, you acknowledge that any information required to track your choices regarding the processing or use of your Personal Data or receipt of marketing materials (that is to say, depending on the country in which the relevant m360 Research or affiliates operate, whether you have expressly consented to or opted out of receiving marketing materials) may be stored and exchanged between members of the m360 Research Group as required to ensure compliance.

m360 Research's legitimate interest. Each of the use cases below constitutes a legitimate interest of m360 Research to process or use your Personal Data. If you do not agree with this approach, you may object against m360 Research's processing or use of your Personal Data as set out below.

Purpose and legal basis for processing your personal data: We collect this personal data to provide the services to you that you are registering for, to tailor them to your needs and to provide services to our clients. Mandatory fields are marked on the registration form and without them you will not be able to register. Without this minimum amount of data, we cannot provide these services to you or conduct our business.

We process your personal data on the basis of our legitimate interest (i.e. we have a valid business reason to do this) and we have carefully balanced your individual rights against this need.

Questionnaires and surveys. m360 Research may invite you to participate in questionnaires and surveys. These questionnaires and surveys will be generally designed in a way that they can be answered without any Personal Data. If you nonetheless enter Personal Data in a questionnaire or survey, m360 Research may use such Personal Data to improve its products and services.

Creation of anonymized data sets and profiling. m360 Research may anonymize Personal Data provided under this Privacy Statement to create anonymized data sets, which will then be used to improve our products and services.

Personal Data We May Collate About You: We use a variety of public sources to collate information about healthcare professionals we believe may be suitable to complete specific Activities or may wish to become members of m360 Research Panels. We may also receive a referral from one of your colleagues and process that information in a similar way. In addition, we will use our systems and public sources of information to keep the personal information we collect accurate and up-to-date. The information would include your name, contact information (address, phone number(s) and possibly email address) and your healthcare specialty.

Purpose and legal basis for processing your personal data: This data is used to manage our contact with you, so that for example multiple people do not try and contact you regarding the same project or you are not contacted again after you have already told us you are not interested in a specific project. We also use it as we generate lists of potential people to contact.

We process your personal data on the basis of our legitimate interest (i.e. we have a valid business reason to do this) and we have carefully balanced your individual rights against this need.

If you wish to be excluded from our programs entirely then please let us know either when an agent next contacts you or by emailing dpo@m360research.com with your request. You will then be added to our do not contact list.

Sharing your personal data with others: This personal data is not shared with third parties. m360 Research does not sell, rent, or trade member’s personal data. We may share your personal data only with:

  • Affiliates of m360 Research to whom it is reasonably necessary or desirable for m360 Research to disclose the personal data
  • Service providers that m360 Research has retained to perform services on its behalf, such as, but not limited to, IT service providers. Service providers are not permitted to use the personal data for their own purposes and are prohibited from onward transfer of the personal data without our written consent in each instance
  • Law enforcement and other government authorities if required by law or reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property, and safety of others or ourselves. This includes lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements
  • Our clients or carefully selected partners, which will, where possible be anonymised data only. No identifiable personal data will be shared without your consent.

Your rights: You have the right to object to us processing your data in this way.

Data Retention: We retain this personal data for 1 year after the specific project has been completed, or for no more than 1 year if it does not relate to a specific project, and then the data is deleted.

Recording of calls and chats for quality improvement purposes. In case of telephone calls or chat sessions, m360 Research may record such calls (after informing you accordingly during that call and before the recording starts) or chat sessions in order to improve the quality of m360 Research's services.

In order to keep you up-to-date/request feedback. Within an existing business relationship between you and m360 Research, m360 Research may inform you, where permitted in accordance with local laws, about its products or services (including webinars, seminars or events) which are similar or relate to such products and services you have already purchased or used from m360 Research. Furthermore, where you have attended a webinar, seminar or event of m360 Research or purchased products or services from m360 Research, m360 Research may contact you for feedback regarding the improvement of the relevant webinar, seminar, event, product or service.

Right to object. You may object to m360 Research using Personal Data for the above purposes at any time by unsubscribing.

If you do so, m360 Research will cease using your Personal Data for the above purposes (that is to say, under a legitimate interest set out above) and remove it from its systems unless m360 Research is permitted to use such Personal Data for another purpose set out in this Privacy Statement or m360 Research determines and demonstrates a compelling legitimate interest to continue processing your Personal Data.

Data Retention: We retain your personal data for 10 years after you end your membership so that we can comply with our data obligations to clients to maintain records for a minimum period. The data is then deleted.

Personal Data We Retain For An Extended Period:

In order to manage its business, m360 Research needs to retain limited personal data about previous members for longer periods of time. We have carefully limited the personal data retained and the circumstances in which it is needed to the following:

  • Requests by individuals to not email them
  • Requests by individuals not to be contacted by m360 Research
  • Individuals who have objected to m360 Research processing their personal data (where there is not an overwhelming interest in us continuing to do so)
  • Individuals who have breached the Sites Terms of Use , including those suspected of fraudulent behaviour

This personal data is not shared with anyone and is only used to honour your requests or to prevent subsequent Activity participation.

Purpose and legal basis for processing your personal data: m360 Research has an obligation to protect its business from suspicious and unlawful activity as well as to respond to requests from individuals to cease contact or processing of their personal data. To do this we need to keep records and process personal data.

If you ask us not to email you, we keep a copy of your email address in our systems to prevent any emails to that email address being sent - this is referred to as our Do Not Contact List and it is the only way we can comply with your request.

If you ask us not to contact you, or have objected to us processing your personal data, we keep a record of your name, address, medical specialty (if you are a healthcare professional) and email address. Your email address is added to our Do Not Contact List. The other details listed are maintained in our systems so we can make our best efforts to remove you from any lists we use - it is the only way we can comply with such requests.

Personal data about individuals suspected of fraudulent behaviour or breaching our terms of use is maintained to prevent these individuals from registering with m360 Research panel and from participating in our Activities as a non-member. We keep a record of name, address, medical specialty (if you are a healthcare professional) and email address for this purpose.

We process your personal data on the basis of our legitimate interest (i.e. we have a valid business reason to do this) and we have carefully balanced your individual rights against this need. For more information on legitimate interests please click here.

Sharing your personal data with others: This information is not shared with third parties.

Your rights: You have the right to object to your personal data being used in this way as well as certain other rights.

Data Retention: This data is held for 50 years to ensure we meet our obligations as described above and then it is deleted.


C. Where m360 Research uses your Personal Data based on your Consent

In the following cases m360 Research will only use your Personal Data as further detailed below after you have granted your prior consent into the relevant processing operations.

News about m360 Research's Products and Services. Subject to a respective provision and your consent, m360 Research may use your name, email and postal address, telephone number, job title and basic information about your employer (name, address, and industry) as well as an interaction profile based on prior interactions with m360 Research (prior purchases, participation in webinars, seminars, or events or the use of (web) services) in order to keep you up to date on the latest product announcements, software updates, software upgrades, special offers, and other information about m360 Research's software and services (including marketing-related newsletters) as well as events of m360 Research and in order to display relevant content on m360 Research's websites. In connection with these marketing-related activities, m360 Research may provide a hashed user ID to third party operated social networks or other web offerings (such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram or Google) where this information is then matched against the social networks' data or the web offerings' own data bases in order to display to you more relevant information.

Creating user profiles. m360 Research offers you the option to use its web offerings including forums, blogs, and networks (such as the m360 Research Community) linked to this website that require you to register and create a user profile. User profiles provide the option to display personal information about you to other users, including but not limited to your name, photo, social media accounts, postal or email address, or both, telephone number, personal interests, skills, and basic information about your company.

These profiles may relate to a single web offering of m360 Research or, if created in the m360 Research Cloud Platform Identity Authentication Service, may also allow you to access other web offerings of m360 Research or of other entities of the m360 Research Group, or both (irrespective of any consent granted under the section "Forwarding your Personal Data to other m360 Research companies." below). It is, however, always your choice which of these additional web offerings you use, and your Personal Data is only forwarded to them once you initially access them. Kindly note that without your consent for m360 Research to create such user profiles m360 Research will not be in a position to offer such services to you where your consent is a statutory requirement that m360 Research can provide these services to you.

Within any web offering, beyond the mere provision of access your profile is used to personalize interaction with other users (for example, by way of messaging or follow functionality) and by m360 Research to foster the quality of communication and collaboration through such offerings and for m360 Research to provide gamification elements (gamification is the process of taking something that already exists, such as a website, an enterprise application, or an online community, and integrating game mechanics into it to motivate participation, engagement, and loyalty). To the greatest extent supported by the relevant web offering, you can use the functionality of the relevant web offering to determine which information you want to share.

Forwarding your Personal Data to other m360 Research companies. m360 Research may transfer your Personal Data to other entities in the m360 Research Group. In such cases, these entities will then use the Personal Data for the same purposes and under the same conditions as outlined in this Section C. above

Forwarding your Personal Data to our marketing partners. m360 Research may, with your prior consent, share your Personal Data with our marketing partners to enable them to reach out to you for relevant marketing products and/or services that you may be interested in. For example, our marketing partners may reach out to you for programmes to improve customer satisfaction, performing market research, providing value added services, for regional support of services, or to organize m360 Research events. m360 Research will not, at any time, sell your Personal Data to any third party.

Revocation of a consent granted hereunder. You may at any time withdraw a consent granted hereunder by unsubscribing. In case of withdrawal, m360 Research will not process Personal Data subject to this consent any longer unless legally required to do so. In case m360 Research is required to retain your Personal Data for legal reasons your Personal Data will be restricted from further processing and only retained for the term required by law. However, any withdrawal has no effect on past processing of personal data by m360 Research up to the point in time of your withdrawal. Furthermore, if your use of an m360 Research offering requires your prior consent, m360 Research will not be (any longer) able to provide the relevant service (or services, if you revoke the consent for m360 Research to use your profile under the m360 Research Cloud Platform Identity Authentication Service for multiple m360 Research offerings), offer or event to you after your revocation.


D. Miscellaneous

How does m360 Research protect your Personal Data?

m360 Research implements appropriate technical and organizational measures to ensure a level of security appropriate to the risk of our processing of your Personal Data such as (i) only sharing and providing access to your information to the minimum extent necessary, subject to confidentiality restrictions where appropriate, and on an anonymized basis wherever possible; (ii) using secure servers to store your information; and (iii) using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software or other similar encryption technologies to encrypt any payment transactions you make on or via our website.

Our databases have a number of security measures to ensure there is no loss, misuse or illegal alteration of information collected from its users. Personal Data we collect is securely stored within our databases, and we use standard, industry-wide, commercially reasonable security practices such as encryption, firewalls and SSL (Secure Socket Layers) for protecting your information. However, as effective as encryption technology is, no security system is impenetrable. We cannot guarantee the security of our databases, nor can we guarantee that information you supply won't be intercepted while being transmitted to us over the Internet or wireless communication and any information you transmit to m360 Research you do at your own risk. If, despite our best efforts, an unauthorised breach of our security measures occurs, resulting in the unauthorised access, duplication, removal or alteration of any Personal Data, subject to applicable law, m360 Research, its directors, officers, employees, promoters, or affiliates will not be held responsible for any loss resulting from such unforeseen breach.


Changes to the Privacy Statement

From time to time, we may update this Privacy Statement to reflect changes to our information practices. Any changes will be effective immediately upon the posting of the revised Privacy Statement. If we make any material changes, we may notify you by email (sent to the e-mail address specified in your account) or by means of a notice on the Website prior to the change becoming effective. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices.


Grievance Redressal

If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy, please feel free to contact us by writing to us at dpo@m360research.com or using the details provided on our 'Contact Us' page. We will use reasonable efforts to respond promptly to requests, questions or concerns you may have regarding our use of personal information about you. Except where required by law, m360 Research cannot ensure a response to questions or comments regarding topics unrelated to this policy or m360 Research's privacy practices.


E. E.U. Specific Provisions

This Privacy Statement is in compliance with the provisions of the European Union General Data Protection Regulation.


F. U.S.-Specific Provisions

Where m360 Research is subject to U.S. privacy requirements, the following also applies:

Do Not Track. Your browser may allow you to set a "Do not track" preference. Unless otherwise stated, our sites do not honor "Do not track" requests. However, you may elect not to accept cookies by changing the designated settings on your web browser or, where available, by way of the TrustArc Consent Manager if the relevant website contains a link to it. Cookies are small text files placed on your computer while visiting certain sites on the Internet used to identify your computer. Please note that if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use certain functions and features of our site. This site does not allow third parties to gather information about you over time and across sites.

Requirements to Protect Children's Privacy. We do not intend for our websites or online services to be used by anyone under the age of 13. If you are a parent or guardian and believe we may have collected information about a child, please contact at dpo@m360research.com.