Does your research involve processing of personal data?
Any data than can be used to identify a person directly (an email address, IP-address, picture or voice recording) or indirectly (e.g. a pet’s veterinary record) are personal data. As a general rule, you are always dealing with personal data when you process any data connected with living persons.
In practice, you cannot avoid processing of personal data if you collect and work on data dealing with interviews, surveys, the recording of picture or sound, social media, and so forth. Personal data may also be involved when you collect information through an anonymous survey and the respondents provide information that may lead to indirect recognition by others. Notice that also the pseudonymization or anonymization of data is by definition processing of personal data.
Additionally, it is worth noting that when personal data is processed, a person can almost without exception be identified through combining different direct and indirect personal data. The more data are available, the easier it is to identify a person.
Personal data that enables direct identification are, for example:
- name
- social security number
- e-mail address that includes the person’s name
- different biometric identifiers, such as the voice of an interviewee.
Personal data that enables indirect identification are, for example:
- sex
- education
- age
- nationality.
What are personal data?
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