Computer & Mobile Panel

Privacy & Cookie Notice

Effective Date: 1 February 2022

Thank you for agreeing to join our select group of panelists! For decades, Nielsen has set the global standard for market and consumer insight research. Our insights are based on representative samples of the population and help our clients (e.g., broadcasters, media companies, manufacturers, nonprofit and government agencies) understand what consumers are looking at, listening to and buying. By participating in our panel you are helping to create industry standard statistics for Australia and influencing programming and advertising content.

The Nielsen Company (Australia) Pty. Ltd. (“Nielsen,” “we,” or “us”) takes your privacy very seriously.This Privacy & Cookie Notice (“Privacy Notice”)explains what information we collect from and about you, how we use and protect that information, and your legal rights regarding the collection and processing of the data.

Please note that this Privacy Notice applies only to your participation in the Computer and Mobile Panel (the “Panel”), including your use of and interaction with this () and any other Nielsen websites where this Privacy Notice is posted or linked (collectively, this “Website”).

This Privacy Notice does not apply to your participation in any other panels, surveys, or studies or your interaction with or use of any other websites or online services administered or provided by us or any other entity within the Nielsen group of companies.

To learn more about the Nielsen group of companies, please click .

Please ensure each member of your household reads this Privacy Notice carefully.

A. OUR PRIVACY COMMITMENT

Nielsen complies with all applicable privacy laws, including The Privacy Act and Australian Privacy Principles. Indeed, it is crucial for us to keep Nielsen panellist data confidential in order to prevent any interference with panelists that could affect their behavior and the accuracy of our data. We will NOT use data that identifies you to advertise, promote, or market or sell third party goods or services directly to you or members of your household; we do not allow our clients to do so either.

B. YOUR AGREEMENT WITH NIELSEN

Nielsen processes your data and, where applicable, data about other members of or visitors to your household, on the basis of the contract you enter into with Nielsen, referred to as the Membership or Panel Agreement. The express purpose of our agreement with you is to obtain data from and about you and, where applicable, other members of your household, to be used for the purposes described in this Notice. By participating in a Nielsen panel, you are contributing your data to a pool of data from which broad audience statistics are derived. These statistics are relied upon by a wide variety of companies to set pricing, advertising, merchandising, and inform other key business decisions. These statistics could be distorted if your data is subsequently altered or removed, so by participating in our panel, you expressly agree to allow us to maintain your data for the length of your participation in the panel, after which it will be used in a de-identified form for historical and statistical research purposes. You have legal rights with respect to your personal data, as described in “Your Choices and Your Legal Rights,” below.

C. THE DATA WE COLLECT

Nielsen conducts research on usage of different media platforms, and Nielsen panelists can participate in different types of metering.

Panelists may agree to be measured on:

Online: by software installed on a single computer that measures usage events (like video streaming or downloading);

Mobile: by software that measures online activity or app usage on a smartphone or tablet;

If you do not participate in a specific type of measurement (e.g. Online), the provisions below that relate to those types of measurement do not apply to you.

As a member of the panel, data may be collected automatically, and automatic data collection may not always be obvious to you as it is happening. The goal of this Notice is to explain how this measurement works, what data wecollect, and what we do with it. Nielsen will only install measurement software or collect data from devices that you have authorised - we will not begin measuring an additional type of device without your prior knowledge and agreement.

Whichever Nielsen panel(s) you participate in, you may be invited to participate in additional research studies or surveys, and some of these may ask you to download software, and/or interact with other companies, websites or applications. If you choose to participate, there may be additional types of data collection that will be disclosed to you at that time, as well as other terms and conditions. We will always tell you about new or substantially different types of data collection before they begin, and you can always withdraw your participation.

The following describes in detail the types of data Nielsen collects about panelists, and its sources. We categorise the data we collect into three general types:

a. Data you provide to us.

During the recruitment process, the panel registration process, or as part of a research study or survey, you provide us with data. This may include directly identifying data, like your first and last name, home postal address or personal email address that by itself, or in combination with other readily available data, could identify you, or another member of your household, as well as demographic data.

Some of the information that we request and collect, including in connection with certain surveys or studies, may be considered “sensitive information” (e.g. information relating to your racial or ethnic origin). If you voluntarily share any “sensitive information” with us or we are required or authorized to collect such information as a result of legal obligations imposed on us, we will, where necessary, obtain your consent to use such information, and we will use it only in the ways described in this Privacy Notice or at the point where you choose to share or disclose this information as well as in accordance with applicable law.

Please note that if you send or direct a message to an individual on this Website or voluntarily post information on certain parts of this Website that are accessible to other visitors/users, those individuals will be able to access, read, and/or use such information, and we have little or no control over how they may use such information. You should keep this in mind when sharing any information (especially sensitive information) on this Website.

b. Data collected by questionnaires, surveys and/or studies.

We may ask you from time to time to participate in additional surveys, studies, or questionnaires. These surveys may request additional behavior and preference data, which we use to better understand general consumer behavior, use, and trends. You may also be asked to accept additional terms in connection with your voluntary participation.

c. Data generated by Nielsen software installed on your device(s).

As an Online and/or Mobile panelist, we collect data through metering software on an eligible app on your mobile device, or that you install or authorise us to install on your computer, smartphone or tablet. Data collected from any Internet-enabled device may include:

  • your Internet browsing history, such as URLs (addresses) of websites you visit,

  • information about ads and content viewed at those sites,

  • data about your device, applications, system, network, and hardware, including your Internet Protocol (IP) address, the Internet Service Provider being used, the type of browser you are using, device identifier, device model, operating system, and language set,

  • when you use online services and for how long, how much bandwidth is being consumed (which helps us identify when video is being streamed),

  • the name of and time spent on applications and games,

  • the file types of materials that you may transmit, receive, upload or download,

  • the location information of your device (gathered from Wi-Fi signals and/or GPS), where voluntarily enabled by you on your device.

  • what hardware or software is installed on or connected to your device, and

  • other details about your use of online or mobile services.

Our metering software cannot view the content of your emails or other communications, documents, files, emails, IM’s, social media posts, etc. You should be aware, however, that our software logs all the urls (web addresses) of the sites and pages you visit, and these often describe or provide information about the content of the pages you visit. Before data is sent back to Nielsen, we use techniques to ensure that it will be secure in transmission.

For information about cookies and other digital technologies that may be used in connection with your participation, please see Section 5: Cookies and Other Digital Technologies. If your panel participation involves a mobile device, the data collected from your mobile device includes a mobile device ad identifier (e.g. Apple IDFA or Android AAID); information about the ads and content viewed through a mobile application, and location information (gathered from Wifi and GPS) where enabled.

d. Data we get from other sources:

We may obtain additional data about you from other sources, generally relating to demographic characteristics, what you watch or buy, and your exposure to content or advertising. We obtain this data from different sources, including, for example:

  • where your activity indicates that you may be streaming video, we may visit the source website independently to identify the content you viewed;

  • publicly available data, (e.g. from public databases, or data that you make public online);

  • using your IP address, via a lookup service, to identify your region or town;

  • other online or mobile Nielsen measurement products (see our “Digital Measurement” Privacy Notice );

  • third party organizations that collect online data;

  • the manufacturers and sellers of consumer products and goods:

  • companies that have a legal right to provide such information to us;

  • “loyalty” programs (e.g., that offer rewards and points) that we may enter into data matching agreements with; and

  • companies that provide data and data-matching services commercially.

We may combine the data Nielsen collects from you, and from our measurement hardware and software, with data from these additional sources. If we combine de-identified or anonymized data with identifying data, the combined data will be treated by us as personal data as long as it is combined. By participating in the panel, you acknowledge that we may obtain information about you from sources such as those listed above and combine it with other information that we hold about you in order to fulfill the purposes described in this Privacy Notice.

e. Data we do NOT collect:

We do not collect data like your driver’s license, financial or bank account numbers, or credit cards. We do not decrypt encrypted content. We cannot access the content of any emails, texts, instant messages, or social media posts, and we cannot read the content of documents or other files open on your computer.

D. HOW WE USE DATA

We use the data we collect to create a variety of market research insights for our clients. Our research insights help our clients make choices about where and how they advertise, including online and mobile. Among other things, our data helps clients understand (for example):

We use tools and methods to make sure that there is no reasonable possibility of identifying you from the reports that we create for our clients. For example, we combine the responses we collect from you with the responses of many others to produce aggregated reports from which you cannot be uniquely identified.

We also create reports based upon modeled data. “Modeled data” are projections based on demographic and behavioural characteristics (like gender, age, and online browsing habits) that look at a sample group of people, and then predict what people with similar characteristics or preferences would want to watch or buy. For instance, this allows advertisers to identify the likely audience for a marketing campaign.

We may use your data to contact you. When we contact you - by phone (including mobile phone), email, SMS, or postal mail depending on what data you provide to us - we usually do so to:

By participating in our research you agree that we may contact you by the means you provide to us for these purposes while you are participating in the panel.

Where applicable, and with your consent, we may also send push notifications to your device through the Software while it is installed on your device. At any time, you can manage your push notification preferences or disable these notifications through the settings on your device.

In addition to using your information for the purposes described above, we may use your information to:

We may use data about you for quality assurance and research and development purposes such as data analysis, audits, developing new products, producing predictive data models, improving our services, identifying usage trends and determining the effectiveness of our communications.

We may de-identify data about you and use it or allow others to use it for historical, academic or longitudinal research. We ensure in such cases that there is no reasonable possibility of re-identifying you from the data used.

We do not and will not license, publish, or sell your personal information to third parties for their own commercial use. Because we are continually adapting our services to evolving consumer and media consumption patterns, we may also use your data in other ways that we haven’t developed yet, in which case we will provide you additional information.

E. COOKIES AND OTHER DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES

This section applies to:

We use cookies and other digital technologies (collectively “Digital Technologies”) for the purposes described in this section. The technologies we use may include (not all will be applicable in every case):

The following table provides an overview of our different categories and purposes of use of Digital Technologies:

Categories of Use Purposes of use
Panelist Portal site (where applicable) To help us personalize your site experience, authenticate you, and interact with you via the site. We also use tools like Google Analytics to help us understand how these sites are used and to continually improve them.
Software-related Security To enable and support security features of our software, such as to help us detect malicious activity, combat fraudulent participation and violations of our Panel Membership Agreement.
Enhancing Panel data with data from mass measurement products Nielsen uses cookies to match data obtained from its online and mobile general audience measurement products with panelist data in order to improve accuracy of its products and broaden our understanding of our panelists’ consumption of media content. If you do not wish to participate in our online audience measurement/advertising effectiveness research, you can opt out at any time .
Interest-Based Advertising The Nielsen Marketing Cloud uses cookies across many popular sites on the Internet to help infer interests and preferences based on visits to those sites. This data is then used to enable advertisers to select specific audiences for online and mobile ads based on the audiences’ inferred interests and preferences. We may use this cookie data to enhance other data we have collected from or about you. If you would prefer not to support the development of interest-based advertising segments, you can opt out at any time .

Additionally, we employ Google’s reCAPTCHA service on our login page to help prevent fraud. To review Google’s Privacy Policy, please click .

Please be aware that we do not respond to Do-Not-Track or similar signals on this Website at this time.

F. WHEN WE SHARE YOUR DATA

We may share data about you with:

Nielsen performs security reviews before engaging service providers who may have access to individual-level data. We obtain contractual assurances relating to the lawfulness of data we obtain from third parties. We also limit how clients may use our data in order to prevent re-identification of aggregated data and to prevent data from being reused in a way that is inconsistent with this Notice.

In addition to the categories of parties described above, we may also share your information with other parties that are disclosed to you at the point of collection, such as in notice delivered to you prior to your participation in a specific survey or study.

G. YOUR CHOICES & YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS

Participation in our panel is always voluntary. You may withdraw from our ongoing data collection at any time by contacting your Nielsen support team, at or uninstalling our software. If you cease participation, we will continue to process the data we collected during the time you were a panellist.

We are also committed to providing you with reasonable access to your personal information and the ability to review and update such information. If you are a current panelist, you can access and update/correct the information in your profile on this Website at any time.

Additionally, under applicable law you may have the right to:

If you are interested in exercising one or more of the rights described above, please submit a request . We will not discriminate against you if you choose to exercise any of the above-listed rights available to you under applicable law. However, because we want to avoid taking action with respect to your personal information at the direction of someone other than you, please note that we may request information verifying your identity before we can give effect to these rights.

If you believe that we have breached the Privacy Act or Australian Privacy Principles, you may email us at . We will investigate your complaint and advise you whether the complaint has been upheld and, if so, the action taken. First, you must submit a complaint to us. If it is not resolved to your satisfaction within 30 days, you may refer the complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner for further review.

H. ABOUT CHILDREN

For our research, we generally seek to collect data about every member of your household, including children. A parent or guardian must contract via the Panel or Membership Agreement on behalf of each child in the household in order for us to conduct such measurement.

All of the provisions of this notice apply to data about children of any age (up to 18), if data collection about them has been authorised by a parent or guardian.

I. DATA SECURITY, AND TRANSFERS OF DATA

Nielsen maintains a global data security organisation that uses reasonable organisational, technical and administrative measures to protect your data while under our control. We may store and process your data in your home country and/or we may transfer and export these data outside of Australia to any country where we have facilities or in which we engage service providers and processors, including the United States and India. The data protection laws of other countries may differ from those in your home country. When we transfer data outside Australia, we ensure that we do so in compliance with Australia’s rules for data.

J. DATA RETENTION

We will retain your data for as long as needed for the purposes described in this Notice and in accordance with applicable law. When you are no longer an active panelist, we will continue to use data about your demographic characteristics, as well as behavior and preference data for historical and statistical research, but we keep this data separate from data that could be used to identify you, and strictly limit access to your identifying data, even within Nielsen. All data will be permanently de-identified when we no longer need to identify you for panel management, audit, legal, fraud prevention or related purposes.

This Notice replaces any other statement, whether written or oral, made to you about our practices with respect to Nielsen’s collection and use of personal data about you.

THANK YOU - WE APPRECIATE AND VALUE YOUR PARTICIPATION!

Nielsen Holdings plc (NYSE: NLSN) is a global measurement and data analytics company that provides the most complete and trusted view available of consumers and markets worldwide. The company’s approach marries proprietary Nielsen data with other data sources to help clients around the world understand what’s happening now, what’s happening next, and how to best act on this knowledge. For more information, please visit