Privacy Policy

ETC Institute Privacy Policy

Last updated on February 10, 2017

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This privacy policy governs the interactions between ETC Institute (“ETC”) and individual survey respondents (“respondent”), and between ETC and survey Owners (ETC’s clients such as public or private agencies). ETC collects survey responses on behalf of its clients and this policy addresses survey responses collected by all ETC departments via printed and electronic media.

Survey Responses and Personal Data

When a respondent answers a printed, online, or telephone survey conducted by ETC on behalf of its clients, he/she grants ETC the right to store, analyze, and report on the responses in a way which preserves respondent’s anonymity. Any personal data that the respondent may choose to provide in a survey response are used to place that response in the appropriate demographic and geographic category. The respondent’s anonymity is achieved by removing any personally identifying information such as name, phone number, and street address from the response record, and obfuscating the geographic coordinates of the reported residence, before the survey responses are submitted to ETC’s client. ETC may occasionally collect the IP addresses of online respondents for the sole purpose of managing the survey. IP data are not used to personally identify survey respondents. ETC recognizes the ownership of the survey response data by the client agency. Survey responses or respondent contact information are never sold to third parties. ETC reserves the right to use anonymized survey responses for secondary research of community attitudes, needs, and perceptions at local and regional scales, including for longitudinal studies. Results of such research may be presented to agencies as a service in support of community investment planning.  The information obtained through smartphone apps will only be used in combination with data from other survey participants for transportation research purposes by the Public Agency Client. ETC Institute respects your privacy and uses state of the art technology and standard practices to protect it.

Security

ETC takes reasonable steps to protect survey response data from loss, misuse, and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. However, no Internet or e-mail transmission or form of electronic storage is ever fully secure or error free. Respondents’ disclosure of information constitutes an understanding and acknowledgement of this and Respondents are asked to keep this in mind when disclosing any information via a survey.

Changes to Company’s Privacy Policy

It may become necessary for ETC to make changes to this Privacy Policy. ETC reserves the right to update or modify this Privacy Policy at any time and from time to time without prior notice. This Privacy Policy was last updated on the date indicated above. Your continued use of ETC’s services after any changes or revisions to this Privacy Policy will indicate your agreement with the terms of such revised Privacy Policy.