You've created an online survey form using SurveyGold. You've distributed it to your respondents and they are filling out the form in droves. Magically the online survey responses start flowing into your SurveyGold application. All seems well until a thought crosses your mind, "Are my online survey responses being processed securely?"
It's a legitimate question and this article unpacks the details regarding the security of your SurveyGold online survey responses.
It's a legitimate question and this article unpacks the details regarding the security of your SurveyGold online survey responses.
Overview: How Online Surveys Work
Before getting into the details of online survey security, it's probably a good idea to review just how your online survey responses are processed. The SurveyGold application is a workstation-based survey authoring and data collection solution. It provides the ability for you to create an online survey form that can be placed on your website or, more commonly, on a website available our online service.
What the Respondent Does: When a respondent submits responses to your online survey form, those online survey responses are sent securely from the respondent's web browser across the Internet and recorded on the surveygold.com website.
What You Do: Later, when you perform the Update Activity action in your SurveyGold application, those online survey responses are moved securely from the surveygold.com website across the Internet to the SurveyGold application that resides on your computer.
When we say "online survey responses are sent securely" we mean it. Responses are sent across the Internet using Transport Layer Security (TLS), the leading Internet encryption technology.
A pictorial overview of online survey form processing is available here.
What the Respondent Does: When a respondent submits responses to your online survey form, those online survey responses are sent securely from the respondent's web browser across the Internet and recorded on the surveygold.com website.
What You Do: Later, when you perform the Update Activity action in your SurveyGold application, those online survey responses are moved securely from the surveygold.com website across the Internet to the SurveyGold application that resides on your computer.
When we say "online survey responses are sent securely" we mean it. Responses are sent across the Internet using Transport Layer Security (TLS), the leading Internet encryption technology.
A pictorial overview of online survey form processing is available here.
Why Our Online Service Processes Online Survey Responses
The SurveyGold Online Services platform on the Internet is the behind-the-scenes hub in our online survey processing solution. In contrast to the majority of other online survey solutions, one distinctive aspect of SurveyGold is that it delivers online survey responses to an application on your computer. Here is why our solution is designed this way:
- It makes it feasible to deploy an online survey solution in an uncomplicated way that does not require information technology staff involvement. The SurveyGold solution is hassle free.
- It would not be possible to provide such an affordable survey solution without our online service as the lynchpin because it avoids the associated costs of installing expensive web server components and database components on your website.
Encrypted Online Survey Responses Have a Secure Stay on Our Online Service
Protecting the privacy of online survey responses submitted via our online service is our highest value. Our servers are actively tested by a third-party for PCI compliance. Online survey responses are encrypted while they are stored on the surveygold.com website. Nothing is done with the responses other than staging them transiently while they await delivery to the SurveyGold application on your computer. As they are downloaded to your computer, they are moved to an archival location on our online service website to serve as a backup and to provide you the ability to share survey responses in real-time with other SurveyGold users via the Shared Responses feature.
No Questions, Only Responses are Recorded on Our Online Service
By the way, the online survey responses that are recorded on surveygold.com are completely encrypted when they come to rest and contain just one thing: responses. There is no contextual question data recorded on our online service.
This is by design so that the only place that responses are correlated to their associated questions is when they responses are downloaded via SurveyGold application to the survey author's computer. Your online survey responses reside in your SurveyGold application database (which is an encrypted file on your computer) after you have collected them into your SurveyGold application. After the responses are downloaded to your computer, they are moved to an archival location on our online service website to serve as a backup and to provide you the ability to share survey responses in real-time with other SurveyGold users via the Shared Responses feature.
This is by design so that the only place that responses are correlated to their associated questions is when they responses are downloaded via SurveyGold application to the survey author's computer. Your online survey responses reside in your SurveyGold application database (which is an encrypted file on your computer) after you have collected them into your SurveyGold application. After the responses are downloaded to your computer, they are moved to an archival location on our online service website to serve as a backup and to provide you the ability to share survey responses in real-time with other SurveyGold users via the Shared Responses feature.
The Final Word: Our Privacy Policy
Golden Hills Software is commited to integrity and honoring the implicit fiduciary trust that our global customer base has come to rely upon. To that end, we have published a privacy policy which outlines how our website is run and how responses are managed and what specific measures we employ to protect response data across the entire SurveyGold solution (both the website and your application).
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