Phone call re survey

biddy21

Hi,I had a phone call last night about 8pm re a survey being done for the Department of Social Protection, I know it wasnt a scam phone call. I googled the number. Can the DSP give out your name and number for this, does anyone know?

Gregor Samsa

Here's the DSP's page on surveys.

https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/e507d2-surveys-in-the-department-of-employment-affairs-and-social-protectio/

it says:

"The Statistics Unit of the Department is a part of the Irish Statistical System, and by law any survey responses supplied to the Statistics Unit or independent research companies on our behalf are totally private and confidential.

Individual level information or responses cannot be shared for any other purpose than statistical reporting. Such information cannot be used for any other administrative purposes and people’s answers can’t affect any interactions they might have with the department in any way."

Here's the list of current DSP surveys:

https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/96cc45-surveys-2015/

A company called B&A is conducting them on behalf of the Department. Both surveys seem to be about specific things (JobSeeker satisfaction and Job Path Customer satisfaction), so it would stand to reason that they are using the contact details of people using these services to call them an survey them.

Here's B&A's privacy statement: https://banda.ie/privacy-policy/

To answer your question, yes, they can use your name and number to contact you. You don't have to do the survey, though. And whether you do it or not will have no bearing on any interaction with the Department.

If you're looking for the legal underpinning of this, then it's the Statistics Act 1993, which is the National legislation that controls the Irish Statistical System

If you had a free day, you could also wade though the DSP's Data Protection policies:

https://www.gov.ie/en/organisation-information/9028df-data-protection-in-the-department-of-employment-affairs-and-social-p/

biddy21

It wasnt from the DSP but they said they got my name and number from them, doing a behaviour and attitude survey. Googled the number they rang from 01 2196951, and not sure

Gregor Samsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118299727#Comment_118299727

I got a survey call from Red C on behalf of the Central Statistics Office previously. The were very clear about who they were, what the survey was about, and gave me a URL to look up more information about the survey. They randomly generate phone numbers for surveys like that, rather than use a list of known people.

Did the caller tell you what company they were from? From you saying it was a "behaviour and attitude survey", it doesn't sound like it was either the JobSeeker satisfaction or Job Path Customer satisfaction surveys, but they're the only ones their website mentions are going on at the moment.

Dial Hard

Behaviour and Attitudes is B&A. I.e. the company conducting the surveys.

Gregor Samsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118300807#Comment_118300807

Ah, makes sense!