ID Verification: Privacy and Data Protection

Am I forfeiting my anonymity by completing the ID verification process?

No. Completing the ID verification process does not affect the anonymity of your survey responses. 

The information you provide during ID verification is used only to confirm that you are a real person, that you have only one YouGov account, and that your country of residence is correct. Your identity verification information is not linked to your survey responses and your responses continue to be shared with our clients anonymously (unless you have specifically given your consent for personal data to be shared).

Does YouGov store copies of what I share during the ID verification process?

Because the ID verification process is handled by Yoti, our trusted identity verification provider, any identification documents and selfies are uploaded to Yoti, not to YouGov. Yoti retains this information for a limited period in accordance with its privacy practice and legal obligations.

While we do not receive or store copies of your identification document or selfie images, we do receive certain information from the identification documents: full name, document issuing authority, document type and document number. This is to help prevent the same identity document from being used to verify multiple accounts. 

YouGov stores this data in encrypted form and only uses this information for verification purposes and is not associated with your survey responses (meaning that your responses will be shared with our clients anonymously, unless you have specifically given your consent for personal data to be shared).

For more information about how your data is handled, please refer to YouGov’s Privacy Policy and Yoti’s ID Verification Privacy Notice. 

I previously completed ID verification, but now I want my personal data to be deleted. Will this include the ID verification data?

Yes. If you exercise your right to have your personal data deleted, this will include any personal data collected as part of the ID verification process, subject to any legal or regulatory requirements to retain certain information.

How does Yoti protect my privacy and security?

You can find detailed information about the measures Yoti uses to protect your personal data in their ID Verification Privacy Notice.