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Wilkening Consulting is an audience research firm based in Seattle, Washington. Most research conducted by Wilkening Consulting is on behalf of the museum field, though related fields may sometimes retain Wilkening Consulting.
This document outlines the data and privacy policies of Wilkening Consulting.
You can reach Susie Wilkening, the principal of Wilkening Consulting, at susie (at) wilkeningconsulting (dot) com to discuss this document or questions with any research being fielded by Wilkening Consulting. You can learn more about Wilkening Consulting at www.wilkeningconsulting.com.
All research conducted by Wilkening Consulting is strictly voluntary and at will. Survey respondents, panelists, and other research participants can withdraw from research at any time. Additionally, research participants may request that their responses by removed or deleted; this request will be honored wherever reasonable and practical.
Personal data consists of information that directly or indirectly identifies you individually. This may include your name, mailing address, email address, phone number, and IP address. Often this Personal Data is provided via the platforms of External Service Providers (see below). It is the choice of research participants to opt-in to sharing most identifying information; IP addresses are often collected by default by the External Service Providers; and browser settings can be adjusted to prevent their being collected. IP addresses are not used by Wilkening Consulting.
Personal Data remains confidential, and is not shared by Wilkening Consulting except by permission of the research participant. Clients of Wilkening Consulting do not receive Personal Data except by prior permission of research participants. Any email addresses collected by Wilkening Consulting are held confidential and not shared nor sold. Communications from Wilkening Consulting are limited to what individual research participants opt in to.
Any Personal Data shared openly (i.e., not during the confidential login process) in an online panel is treated confidentially by Wilkening Consulting, but is viewable by other panelists who are not constrained by the privacy policies of Wilkening Consulting. Thus, Wilkening Consulting strongly urges panelists to not share identifying information broadly within a panel. Any panelist misusing panel content in any way would be immediately removed from the panel and may be subject to further actions, as appropriate.
Wilkening Consulting will only disclose your Personal Data to public bodies when required by law. Court orders or subpoenas will be honored as advised by an attorney of Wilkening Consulting.
It is the policy of Wilkening Consulting to store your Personal Data for a period of two years after the completion of a project. At that time, any identifying Personal Data will be deleted (though unidentifying data will be retained as part of the data library of Wilkening Consulting). If a research participant wishes for their Personal Data to be deleted prior to that time, they may request Wilkening Consulting to do so via email.
Wilkening Consulting’s policy is to neither include children in online surveys or panels, nor conduct any research including children except with the explicit permission of a parent or guardian. The online nature of surveys and panels makes it impossible, however, for Wilkening Consulting to guarantee that children are not participating.
An exception to this policy may occur if research is requested by a client on high school students 14 or older. This can include surveys and/or online panels that are restricted to high school students only.
At this time, Wilkening Consulting uses Alchemer for survey collection and Ning for the hosting of online panels. Carbonite is used for backing up of Wilkening Consulting data. Third-party vendors are often used for the fulfillment of prize drawings and thank you gifts (e.g., Visa gift cards) when applicable. While these external service providers do have access to some Personal Data provided by research participants in the work of Wilkening Consulting, they do not have permission to use your data for any purpose, and they are contractually bound by their terms of service to maintain the confidentiality of Wilkening Consulting’s research, intellectual property, and data. Within these rules, however, Ning may directly contact online panelists to address technical support issues. Wilkening Consulting is not responsible for any breaches of these External Service Providers, but endeavors to only use those that are trusted and reliable.
Updated December 21, 2021
