Personal data (PII)

Personal data is any information about an identified or identifiable person: a name, an email, a phone number, an ID, a photo, a location, or a set of answers that together point to one person. PII (personally identifiable information) is the US term for the same idea and is usually read more narrowly.

Laws such as the EU's GDPR and Brazil's LGPD require a legal basis for collecting personal data (often consent), telling people what you collect and why, keeping only what you need and deleting it on request. Check the rules that apply to you before a survey asks for contact details. See also informed consent.

How it works in SurveyNinja

• Consent checkbox. In the submit button settings (Standard and higher), turn on Consent to personal data processing. Respondents can't send the survey until they tick it, and you write the policy text or link your own page.
• Anonymous survey. A switch in the survey settings, on every plan, makes responses anonymous. Answers are still saved as typed, so don't ask for a name or email if you promise anonymity.
• Deleting responses. A deleted response goes to the Deleted tab first, and from there you can remove it permanently.
• Where data is stored. In the SurveyNinja cloud, data is stored on a server in the EU. If it must stay on your own servers, there is an on-premise option, see box, on-prem, cloud.

Help: Welcome, thank you and other survey screens (the submit button), Survey access and protection, Deleting responses. More on protection: security.

Tips

• Ask only for the data the survey needs. If an email is only for a prize draw, make the question optional.
• Say on the welcome screen how the answers will be used.
• Don't put personal data in survey links that other people can see.