Planning an online survey and wondering what you actually need to do about data protection? Do not start with legal provisions. Start with one simple question: do you need to know who submitted each response?
If not, an anonymous survey is often the more privacy-friendly option. If you need names, email addresses, individual invitation links or other personal identifiers, the processing should be planned deliberately and explained transparently to respondents.
The key point first: Decide whether your survey should be anonymous or involve personal data. Then define the purpose and legal basis. Provide your own privacy information and any legally required provider information. Only then decide how to invite respondents, which questions and attributes to use, and how results will be analysed. This helps avoid making an intended anonymous survey identifiable through individual settings.
Table of Contents
Data protection in online surveys: step by step
1. First decide: does the survey need to involve personal data?
Before building the questionnaire, ask whether you actually need to link responses to individuals. For many feedback, satisfaction or employee surveys, anonymous analysis is sufficient.
Anonymous means: responses cannot be linked to an identified or identifiable person. This is not only about names and email addresses. Small groups, department, age, role, individual participant attributes or technical characteristics can also make someone identifiable when combined.
LamaPoll can be used for both anonymous and non-anonymous surveys. For anonymous surveys, you should pay particular attention to the invitation method, participant attributes, filter questions, and device or referrer detection. See the Helpdesk guide on anonymity in surveys.
Practical example: You want to ask for an email address voluntarily after collecting feedback, for example for a prize draw, while keeping the survey responses anonymous. In LamaPoll, the separate analysis function can be used so that contact details are processed separately from the other responses. Guide to keeping contact details separate from survey responses.
2. If personal data is required: define the purpose and legal basis
As soon as personal data is processed, you need to establish why you need the data and which legal basis applies. Consent is only one possible legal basis under Article 6 GDPR and is not automatically required for every survey.
If you rely on consent, it must be freely given, informed, unambiguous and specific to the relevant purpose. It must be given through a clear affirmative action and must not be buried in general notices.
In LamaPoll, consent can be built directly into the questionnaire. For example, you can use:
- a mandatory yes/no question at the start of the survey,
- branching that ends the survey if consent is not given,
- or a mandatory checkbox implemented as a multiple-choice question.
The Helpdesk explains the technical setup: add privacy information and consent to a survey.
3. Provide privacy information and legally required provider details
If personal data is collected directly from respondents, the information required under Article 13 GDPR must be provided when the data is collected. This includes, in particular:
- who the controller is,
- the purposes for which the data is processed,
- the legal basis for the processing,
- who receives or may receive the data,
- how long the data will be stored, or the criteria used to determine that period,
- and the rights available to the individuals concerned.
Use your own privacy notice for the survey, not LamaPoll's privacy policy. As the survey creator, you determine the purpose and content of the survey.
Do not forget your privacy notice and legal notice: LamaPoll lets you link both permanently in the survey footer or provide them as documents. This keeps the information accessible throughout the survey. Where legally required for your digital service, provider information must be easy to recognise and directly accessible. How to add privacy information and a legal notice in LamaPoll.
4. Review the questions: are you collecting only the data you need?
Before publishing, go through the questionnaire question by question. Do you really need a name, email address, exact department, location, age or role for the purpose of the survey? If not, remove the field or collect the information at a less granular level.
Especially in small groups, a combination of otherwise unremarkable details can make a person identifiable. For example, combining team, management role, age and gender may be enough to identify someone.
5. Review particularly sensitive questions separately
Health data, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership and other special categories of personal data fall under Article 9 GDPR. Additional requirements apply to their processing.
If your survey collects such data, or if its scale, purpose or analysis may create a high risk to respondents' rights, you should assess whether a data protection impact assessment under Article 35 GDPR is required.
6. Check the survey provider and data processing agreement
If a survey provider processes personal data on your behalf, this will generally constitute processing on behalf of a controller. You will then normally need a data processing agreement under Article 28 GDPR. In particular, check:
- where the data is processed and stored,
- which sub-processors are involved,
- whether any international data transfers take place,
- which technical and organisational measures are in place,
- and how access, exports and deletion are handled.
7. Before publishing: a quick data protection check
- clearly decided whether the survey is anonymous or involves personal data
- purpose and legal basis defined
- only necessary questions and participant attributes used
- privacy information included
- required provider information accessible
- consent implemented correctly where consent is the legal basis
- data processing agreement and sub-processors checked
- access rights and deletion periods defined
- anonymity settings and small analysis groups reviewed where relevant
How LamaPoll supports privacy-friendly surveys
LamaPoll provides the technical basis for implementing different data protection approaches. What matters, however, is which data you collect for your specific survey and how you use it.
- Anonymous and non-anonymous surveys: depending on the use case, you decide whether responses should be linked to individual participants.
- Separate analysis: in suitable scenarios, contact details can be processed separately from the remaining survey responses.
- Consent within the questionnaire: consent can be requested, for example, through a yes/no question or a mandatory checkbox.
- Privacy information: your privacy notice and legally required provider information can be linked or provided within the survey.
- Data processing in Germany: survey data is processed in Germany. According to LamaPoll's current product and security documentation, no US cloud services are used to process survey data.
- Information security: the information security management system is certified to ISO/IEC 27001, and LamaPoll has also been audited to TISAX® Assessment Level 2.
Practical LamaPoll guides:
- add privacy information, a legal notice and consent
- configure anonymous surveys
- run non-anonymous surveys
- keep contact details separate from survey responses
For more information about hosting, certifications, technical and organisational measures, and data processing agreements, see Data protection & security.
