Code of Ethics for the Institute for Neuromarketing and Intellectual Property

At the Institute for Neuromarketing & Intellectual Property (in text: Institute), we are dedicated to developing innovative applications and techniques based on physiological signal recordings that can improve marketing, industrial production, and social welfare. We recognize the importance of respecting people’s health and freedom in any purpose or execution that we pursue. Our institute is committed to upholding a strict code of ethics when performing research or developing software.

The first principle of this code is that all bio-signal recordings must be carried out using certified technologies only. Our institute adheres strictly to the same protocols medical and scientific fields require when collecting participant bio-signals. This includes informing all individuals involved in measurements about the nature of our research before asking them to sign an informed consent form. Additionally, our staff members adhere to the highest standards of professionalism while conducting their research activities.

The second main principle requires us to use algorithms applied for signal elaboration based on corroborated scientific knowledge from our R&D teams at the Institute https://neuromarketinginstitut.com/eng/published-research/

We ensure that these algorithms have been thoroughly tested before being implemented into our institution’s software development or research activities. In addition, any findings generated from these algorithms must be reported accurately without distortion or manipulation until other sources have verified them.

Finally, all data collected during research activities at our institute must remain confidential by relevant laws and regulations governing data protection and privacy rights. Furthermore, any data collected from individuals must be stored securely on encrypted computers with access restricted solely to authorized personnel.

These principles form our institute’s Research Code of Conduct, which governs how we conduct ourselves as researchers to ensure both ethical practices and quality results that can help improve marketing, industry production, and social welfare while protecting people’s health and freedom at all times.

Doc.Dr. Hedda Martina Šola, Director General

Institute for Neuromarketing & Intellectual Property is committed to providing ethical, responsible research on people. Our non-invasive measuring tools ensure that participants are fully informed about the purpose of any study and that their data remains anonymous.

We proudly align our code of conduct & ethics with those established by The Neuromarketing Science & Business Association (NMSBA) and The ICC/ESOMAR International Code on Market, Opinion and Social Research and Data Analytics, which sets the standard of ethical and professional conduct for the global data, research and insights community. Should you have any questions or feedback regarding Institute for Neuromarketing & Intellectual Property’s policies, we invite you to reach out through info@neuromarketinginstitut.com

This Privacy Statement describes the type of personal details collected by the Institute for Neuromarketing & Intellectual Property (in text: Institute) and/or its subsidiaries, for which purposes this is done and how the personal details are used, consulted, disclosed or otherwise processed and protected.

In this Privacy Statement, “personal details” means all information or pieces of information based on which you can be identified, including but not limited to your name, address, e-mail address and telephone number.
Applicability. This Privacy Statement applies to all personal details collected by the Institute during interactions between you and the Institute in connection with its services, including but not limited to all offline and online data collections of all personal details.

Your consent. The institute will only collect, use, consult, disclose or otherwise process personal details per the applicable legislation and regulations. Personal information will be processed per our privacy policy. By using our services, you permit us to process your details and declare that all the personal information you have provided is correct.
You may withdraw your consent to the Institute to process your details at any time you choose. Withdrawal of consent does not affect the lawfulness of details already processed based on your consent before their withdrawal. Should you complain about the Institute processing personal information, you have the right to submit this complaint to the supervisory authority, namely the Croatian Data Protection Authority.

Collected Information. Institute may request or receive the above information if you provide it by filling out forms or interacting with our teams via our website for:
(1)    Receiving and sharing information;
(2)    Taking part in a competition or promotion organized by one of our affiliated companies or by us;
(3)    Applying for a job or internship
(4)    Taking part in tests and interactive experiments that we use for research purposes;
During your interactions with the Institute, we may request or receive specific details from you, including but not limited to:
Your name;
Your postal address;
Your telephone number;
Your e-mail address;
Your IP address;
Your gender;
Your preferences: Your activities on the Institute website.

Data-processing purposes. Your details are processed for the following purposes:

1. To ensure that the content of our website is presented as effectively as possible for you and your computer;
2. To provide you with information, products or services that you request from us or in which we think you may be interested and in respect of which you have given your consent to be approached for this purpose;
3. Fulfilling our obligations arising from agreements between you and us;
4. Allowing you to make use of interactive elements of our services at any time you choose;
5. Keeping you informed about changes to/in our services.
6. Helping further research and knowledge on human behaviour.
   If you contact us via the Institute website or send us an e-mail, the data you send to us will be retained for as long as the nature of the contact form or content of your e-mail requires you to answer or deal with the same fully. Data collected for research purposes will always be made anonymous.

Disclosure of your details. Your details may be disclosed or made available to (or used on behalf of) the Institute or third parties in the following circumstances:

1. To answer your questions/respond to a request for information;
2. If (parts of) the Institute or almost all of its assets are acquired by a third party, in which case the personal details of customers processed by the Institute form part of the assets being transferred;
3. If we are obliged to disclose or share your details in order to comply with a legal obligation,
4. To comply with our Terms of Use and other agreements or to protect the rights, property or safety of the Institute, our customers or third parties. This includes but is not limited to the exchange of information with other companies, organisations, and (enforcement) authorities to prevent fraud or misuse and to limit credit risks.
5. Uploading material onto our website
   If you post unsolicited ideas, information and/or materials in the form of but not limited to text, images, sounds or software (“Material”) on this website or upload, e-mail or otherwise send such material to the Institute, Institute is entirely within its rights to use, copy, distribute and/or commercially exploit this Material free of charge and without limits, and any confidentiality obligation about this material does not bind Institute. Institute has the right to disclose your identity to third parties that claim that the material you have posted on or uploaded to our website infringes any right vested in these third parties, such as intellectual property rights or the right to privacy.

Your rights. Once you have provided us with your details, you have the right to request the Institute to rectify or delete such personal information or to restrict the processing of your details. You also have the right to object to the processing of your personal information, and you have the right to data portability. You may at any time object to using your personal details for direct marketing. You may also request that your personal information be viewed at any time. To do this, you may contact info@neuromarketinginstitut.com stating your name, company name (if applicable) and address. By submitting a data inspection request, you declare that you have the right to view the personal details to which you request access.

Security of personal details. We take every reasonable precaution to secure and protect the personal information you provide to us. We demand the same from third parties that process or handle personal information for us.
Linked sites. Our websites may contain links to and from other websites in our partner network, advertisers, affiliated companies and other third parties. If you follow a link to one of these websites, you should be aware that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we accept no responsibility or liability whatsoever for these policies. Please read the respective policy before providing personal details to these websites.
Changes to our Privacy Statement. We reserve the right to adjust this Privacy Statement. Any changes we make to our Privacy Statement will be published on this website.

Contact. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or comments you may have or to request information. Please send these to info@neuromarketinginstitut.com stating your name, company name and address. If your question needs to be answered by a member of staff that works for the Institute or one of our partners outside the EEA, the data we collect on you may have to be sent to and stored at a location outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”).

Adoption of this code is a condition of membership to the NMSBA. The code may be revised from time to time to ensure that it adequately reflects the highest ethical standards for the neuromarketing research industry.
The NMSBA code accepts the principles enshrined in the ICC/ESOMAR research code of conduct. It represents a first step towards international standards for the use of neuroscientific methods to study the effectiveness of:

– advertising campaigns
– packaging and product design
– communication campaigns from non-profit organizations and government institutions.

The Code of Ethics for the neuromarketing industry addresses three important issues:
– to restore the confidence of the public in the legitimacy and integrity of neuromarketers
– to ensure neuromarketers protect the privacy of research participants
– to protect the buyers of neuromarketing services

The code may be revised from time to time to ensure that it adequately reflects the highest ethical standards for the neuromarketing research industry. The NMSBA code accepts the principles enshrined in the ICC/ESOMAR code

1. Neuromarketing researchers shall comply with the highest research standards enforced in their respective countries and use accepted scientific principles.
2. Neuromarketing researchers shall not act in any way that could negatively impact the reputation and the integrity of the neuromarketing research profession.
3. Neuromarketing findings shall be delivered to clients without exaggerating or misrepresenting the neuromarketing insights beyond what is scientifically accepted.

1. Neuromarketing researchers shall take all reasonable precautions to ensure that participants are in no way harmed or stressed as a result of their involvement in a neuromarketing research project.
2. Neuromarketing researchers shall not deceive participants or exploit their lack of knowledge of neuroscience.
3. No sales offer shall be made to a participant as a direct result of his/her involvement in a project.
4. Neuromarketing researchers shall be honest about their skills and experience.

1. Concerns or critics about publicly known neuromarketing projects shall be first presented to the attention of the NMSBA before they are shared widely.
2. Neuromarketing researchers involved in functional brain imaging shall disclose a protocol for dealing with incidental findings.

1. Participation in a neuromarketing research project shall always be entirely voluntary.
2. Neuromarketing researchers shall maintain a public website describing their services and the credentials of their core team members as well as post a physical address where officers of the company can be contacted.
3. Neuromarketing researchers shall allow their clients to audit the process by which neuromarketing insights are collected and processed.
4. Neuromarketing researchers shall ensure that neuromarketing research projects are created, delivered and documented with transparency and reported with as many details as the clients would require to understand the scope and relevance of the project.

1. Neuromarketing researchers shall explain the tools they use to participants in layman terms.

2. Before providing consent, participants in neuromarketing research shall explicitly express their understanding of the protocols as well as the general objectives of the study.

3. Participants shall be fully informed about the project before any neuromarketing technique can be used to collect their neuromarketing insights.

4. Once a neuromarketing study has commenced, participants shall be free to withdraw.

1. Neuromarketing researchers shall ensure that participants are made aware of the purpose of collecting insights.

2. Neuromarketing researchers shall have a privacy policy which is readily accessible to participants from whom they collect insights.

3. The identity of participants will not be revealed to the client without explicit consent.

4. Personal information collected shall be collected for specified neuromarketing research purposes and not used for any other purpose.

5. Personal information may not be kept longer than is required for the purpose of the neuromarketing project.

6. Neuromarketing researchers shall ensure that adequate security measures are used to protect access to the insights collected during any project.

7. The neuromarketing research data itself, including brain scans and brain data shall remain the property of the research company and will not be shared.

1. Participants to any neuromarketing research project shall confirm that they are not obligated to participate in the project.

2. Participants to any neuromarketing research project shall be able to withdraw from the research at any time.

3. Participants to any neuromarketing research project shall be guaranteed that their personal data is not made available to others.

4. Participants to any neuromarketing research project shall be guaranteed that the insights will be deleted or modified upon request.

5. Particular care shall be taken to maintain the data protection rights of participants when personal data is transferred from the country in which they are collected to another country. when data processing is conducted in another country, the data protection principles of this code must be respected.

Neuromarketing studies involving participants less than 18 years of age shall only take place with the informed consent of the participant’s parents or legal guardians.

Neuromarketing researchers shall disclose prior to work commencing, when any part of the project is to be subcontracted outside the neuromarketing researchers’ own organization (including the use of any outside consultants).

When results of a project are publicly shared, neuromarketing researchers shall clearly articulate which part of the report represents an interpretation of the data vs. which part of the data represent the key findings. Neuromarketing researchers shall not associate their names to a neuromarketing research project unless they have actively participated in the project and are able to defend the findings.

Neuromarketing researchers shall commit that they will apply this code and ensure their own clients and other parties will comply with its requirements. failure to do so will result in the termination of their membership.

1. Neuromarketing researchers and their clients shall acknowledge that they know the code and also respect other self-regulatory guidelines that are relevant to a particular region or project; the code is applicable for all involved in a neuromarketing project.
2. The NMSBA members shall show their acceptance of the code, by publishing the code on their website or by publishing a link to www.nmsba.com/ethics