Unfortunately, as a market research company, we are confronted with a data breach at a supplier of software that we use for research. Third parties may have had access to data that we collect and process for clients and data for our own satisfaction survey. This concerns data that is needed to invite people to participate in the study (names, email addresses and telephone numbers) and the answers are given in the study.
We have made a report with regard to our own data to the Dutch Data Protection Authority. We have also informed our clients of the incident.
On March 24, we received written notification that there was an unauthorized access to the software supplier’s network. On March 27, this supplier confirmed that data had actually been stolen. We deeply regret this and we have informed our clients about this. We do not yet know what exactly was stolen. An investigation is currently underway to find out which data has been viewed or stolen by unauthorized persons.
If we have contacted your company for research purposes by phone in the last 6 months, it could be that your company phone number was part of the data breach. Please be cautious for suspicious calls.
In the coming period, we will do everything we can to keep our clients as well-informed as possible.
