QandR does not record any personal information, so in that sense it is anonymous. The system's database does not contain any personal information such as names and phone numbers, so you can also safely share the images produced by QandR.

The GDPR-safe design of QandR should NOT lead to the assumption that QandR offers the possibility of an anonymous discussion. This assumption is contrary to the design principle of QandR where participants are encouraged to further explain their point of view, either in a physical environment or in an online environment. During this explanation, people see each other, and in this situation the interaction is by definition NOT anonymous. Moderators will typically look for the reasoning behind the answers, which is a personal interaction that anyone can see and identify with the person. However, this non-anonymous portion of the interaction takes place outside the scope of QandR and is not recorded in QandR in any way. Thus, using QandR does not make your respondent truly anonymous, but the system also does not store any personal information, in order to comply with the GDPR.

As a moderator, we also ask you to actively communicate this methodology to your respondent, so that he/she knows that no personal information is stored in the system, but it is possible that moderators ask him/her to explain the opinion he/she has submitted in the system.

QandR is designed to be used in an environment - remote (online) and/or in a physical space, where people also see each other and engage in conversation. In that conversation, you see and hear each other and find out what others think. For example, in a qualitative conversation, the facilitator will typically ask respondents to explain the answers given so that the underlying opinion can be discussed.

QandR hands out a color to each participant at the beginning of the session. You can see that color reflected, for example, in the dots that participants use on the main screen. If the person with the blue dot explains his/her point of view, it will also become clear to everyone in the session who is operating the blue dot. The colors thus promote group dynamics, making it easier to quickly address someone regarding his or her answer. But the link between the color and the person is not visualized by QandR itself. Also in the archive it is not visible who had which color. The QandR archives are thus really a form of anonymous data storage.

To conduct QandR sessions as a moderator, you need a QandR account. With it, you can start all your sessions and view their results afterwards. These are the visuals that visually represent the collective responses of your participants - not the individual responses of identifiable individuals. Your QandR account is a secure account that can only be accessed by you. A QandR account requires only a few pieces of information from you, such as email, name, and name of your organization that you enter once when you register your account. QandR only uses your data to run the service and will never share it with others.

Facilitators of public meetings have a responsibility to follow the GDPR guidelines within QandR session. The QandR modules may not be used to **retrieve personally identifiable information. For example, a Wordcloud may not be used to retrieve the first or last names or other personal information of participants. And according to the GDPR guidelines, no selfies may be uploaded to the Moodboard either.

When a QandR session of a public meeting does contain personal data of participants, we advise facilitators to delete the archive of that session. In the dashboard and [the editor] functions are available for this.

The QandR developer Noterik has an FG (data protection officer) who oversees customer and user privacy compliance in accordance with the AVG, who is also registered with the AP (Authority for the Protection of Personal Data). In this way, in addition to the restrictions already built into the service, we offer our customers additional reliability and ensure that internally everything is always in order.

Please review our privacy policy for more technical details on how we handle the collection, storage and disclosure of personal data from facilitators, participants and other stakeholders.