Privacy notice

Last updated 1 October 2026.

This notice is for people who email us, phone us, or use the quote form on this website. It is written for the first data-protection standard in the Data Protection Act 2020, section 22, including the items in section 22(6).

It does not govern household or business interviews. Those files follow How we protect respondent data and the contract for that survey.

Who controls this website

The data controller is Balcostics Limited, trading as Balcostics Research.

Address: Unit 10, QVilla Plaza, 7-9 Villa Road, Mandeville, Manchester, Jamaica.

Phone: (876) 964-4046 and (876) 314-4543.

Email: research@balcostics.com.

We are established in Jamaica. We have not appointed a representative under the Act for processing directed from outside Jamaica.

Giving us your details on the form is not compulsory under any law. If you do not send the form, or you leave out a field, we may be unable to price the work or reply. There is no other legal consequence. We are not collecting these details under a statutory power. The legal basis is that you asked us for a quote or an answer. That is a step you requested toward a contract (Data Protection Act, section 23(1)(b)), and you can see this notice before you send the form.

Data protection officer

Our data protection officer is Abi-Gaye White-Thomas.

Write to her at the address above, email research@balcostics.com, or call (876) 964-4046 or (876) 314-4543. Please put "Data protection" in the subject line so the message reaches her.

Why we use your details

We use what you send for two purposes.

• To answer the enquiry.
• To prepare a fieldwork or myVoice quote, if you asked for one.

We do not use enquiry details for marketing unless you opt in. We do not sell them. We do not add you to a newsletter because you asked for a price.

What the form collects

The quote form, and an email you send instead, may include:

• your name
• your organisation
• your email address
• your phone number, if you give one
• the survey details you choose to include: sample size, mode, parishes, timeline, budget range, and anything else you type in the message

Do not send respondent lists, ID numbers, or other people's data in the form. If you need to share a sample frame, we will agree a channel first. Fonts on this site are self-hosted. The site does not need your details in order to display the pages.

Who receives them, and in which country

We use three providers to run this website and to deliver mail.

Staff at Balcostics who answer enquiries also see the message. That is inside Jamaica.

We do not pass enquiry mail to advertisers. If we later hire a different email or hosting provider, we will update this notice before we rely on the new one.

Legal basis for transfers out of Jamaica

The eighth standard (Data Protection Act, section 31) says personal data may leave Jamaica only if the destination gives an adequate level of protection, or if a listed case applies.

We rely on section 31(4).

• You send the form so that we can reply and, if you asked, prepare a quote. The transfer to Resend is part of taking that step at your request (section 31(4)(b)).
• This notice names the providers before you send the form. Sending the form, after reading the notice, is your consent to that limited transfer (section 31(4)(a)). You can withdraw consent for any later use. Withdrawal does not undo a transfer that already happened so we could answer you.

We do not move website enquiries on contractual clauses approved by the Information Commissioner, and we do not claim an authorisation from the Commissioner for these three providers. The transfer is the email path and the hosting path above, and nothing wider.

How long we keep enquiries

We keep quote and contact emails for 24 months from the last message in the thread, then we delete them. Deletion follows the Data Protection (Disposal of Personal Data) Regulations, 2024: the data should no longer be processable or linkable to you, and the deletion of electronic copies should be permanent given reasonably foreseeable technology.

If an enquiry becomes a signed contract, the contract file is kept for the period the contract states, which can be longer than 24 months. That file is no longer a bare website enquiry.

If we used your details to make a decision about you, we keep them long enough for you to ask for access, as regulation 2(1)(c) of those Regulations requires, and then we dispose of them.

Your rights

You can write to the data protection officer and ask:

• Access. Whether we are processing personal data about you, a description of it, the purposes, and who receives it. You can ask for a copy. We respond within 30 days of having the request and any prescribed fee for a copy, unless a longer maximum period has been prescribed (Data Protection Act, section 6).
• Rectification. If something is wrong or incomplete, ask us to amend, block, erase or destroy it as the correction requires. We decide within 30 days and tell you what we did (section 13).
• Direct marketing. Object to any marketing use. Our rule is simpler than the statute's floor: we do not send marketing unless you have opted in. If you opt in and later object, we stop. A controller must not process personal data for direct marketing without the consent the Act requires (section 10).

You may also complain to us first. If you are not satisfied, you can complain to the Office of the Information Commissioner.

Office of the Information Commissioner
Masonic Building, 2nd Floor, 45-47 Barbados Avenue, Kingston 5, Jamaica
Website: oic.gov.jm
Email: info@oic.gov.jm
Phone: (876) 920-4390

The address and contact details are as published by the Jamaica Information Service for the Office.

Registration

Balcostics Limited is registered with the Office of the Information Commissioner. The registration fee is not yet payable.

Respondent data from surveys is a different processing activity. Read How we protect respondent data before you send a sample frame or a questionnaire that collects personal data.