When conducting a survey measuring diversity in their workforce, companies must ensure that they are in compliance with current regulations. For example, the survey may relate to the disability, age or social background of employees.

A series of recommendations to follow

In its recommendation, the Council recommends the following measures:

• prioritize anonymous surveys;
• use the legal basis of “legitimate interest” to set up your investigation. The latter can be registered in a approach to preventing and combating discrimination ;
• define a legitimate purpose (improvement of equal opportunities at work) in order to avoid re-use of the data collected;
• ensure the voluntary nature of the participants by requiring them to take “positive and specific” action;
• properly inform employees or agents before the collection of their data and guarantee their rights;
• limit the information collected to the needs of the survey (the recommendation provides examples of questions);
• solicit the free, explicit and informed consent employees or agents to collect their sensitive data;
• use a trusted third party to administer the survey and to analyze personal data;
• define responsibilities for treatment;
• define the retention periods of the data collected;
• anonymize results before dissemination;
• perform a data protection impact assessment ;
• ensure the confidentiality and security of the data.