Foundation destroys data collected for study on childless households

TALLINN – The Pere Sihtkapital SA foundation announced on Tuesday that on Saturday, Aug. 12, it suspended interviewing and processing of personal data in the family survey targeting people with many children and people without children, and the data used in the survey was destroyed together with the polling company.

The foundation, in the person of its board member Hillar Petersen, confirmed an error in obtaining ethics committee approval, which precludes the continuation of the survey on childless people.

"On Monday, August 14, the foundation and the survey company completely destroyed all the data retrieved or collected as part of the survey of families without children, that is, both registry data and questionnaire responses. The foundation apologizes to all those who have responded to the survey," he said.

"In addition to suspending the survey of those with many children, the foundation, in cooperation with the survey company, has decided to remove the linking feature from the questionnaire responses of families with many children, which expressed the respondent's consent that in the future, questionnaire responses in long-term surveys can be linked to registry data," Petersen said.

He said the foundation waives this possibility, and the conditions related to the continuation of the survey on families with many children will be decided after consultation with the parties.

"Both the Data Protection Inspectorate and the ethics committee have said that the survey on families with many children does not require their permission," Petersen said.

In addition, the foundation confirmed that no personal data has been forwarded to the university as part of the research carried out under the contract with the university.