Tracking & Identifying Respondents Using Their IP-address

Collecting the IP-address from participants may have analytical values. For example, it may enable you to identify whether one person has participated in the same survey several times to affect the results.

To address this need, we have implemented a feature called “Collect IP-address“.

Turning this setting ON, enables storing the IP-addresses of your participants along with the collected data. To comply with the GDPR regulation this setting is off by default and our system does not collect any IPs. If you turn this ON for analytical purposes, remember that your respondents will not have any way to know that you are collecting their IPs (personal information). Therefore, you must explain to them your reasons and get their consent, according to the GDPR.

Keep in mind that IP-addresses are considered as personal data, particularly by the European law. Therefore collection of IP-addresses without asking for permission from the respondents makes your questionnaire none-compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)!

If you want to enable this feature, we strongly recommend you to obtain consent from your respondents. Learn more about obtaining consent from respondents.

Note:

Even when the IP collecting feature is OFF, our system will still be able to show you which country or city are your respondents coming from; both in your Live Analytics or Individual Responses view

How are IP-addresses shown to you

There are two ways you can see the IP addresses.

In exported data

One of them is when you export your collected data, like the example below.

Note:

When you download the data, each row in the Excel file represents one participant or participation.

A	B	C	…	Z
Did you come to our seminar last week?	How satisfied are you with the following aspects of the seminar?	What is your current position?	…	IP
Yes	Satisfied	Supervisor	…	247.205.10.215
Yes	Satisfied	Marketing	…	140.8.220.85
No	N/A	Accounting	…	138.178.112.104
Yes	Very satisfied	IT	…	82.225.210.133

* The above data are fake.

The above table shows an example of a downloaded spreadsheet file. First row shows survey questions, and each of the next rows represent one respondent. When you download a spreadsheet of your survey responses, you will see each respondent’s IP-address too, if this feature is enabled.

In “Individual responses” view

The other way is by going to the individual responses view. The IP-addresses are stated for each respondent, under the Metrics tab.

The illustration above shows an example of what is shown under the Metrics tab in the Individual Responses view. Note how IPs and External IDs are shown to survey creators.

Does SurveyLegend collect IPs automatically?

No, to stay compliant with GDPR our system does not collect IP addresses by default; unless you enable this feature.

Note:

It is your own responsibility to inform your respondents that you are collecting their IP-addresse. You must also make sure to obtain their consent. If you fail to do so you might face fines, specially if you are collecting data from European citizens.

Are IP-addresses reliable identifiers?

Well, not 100%. If your respondent uses a VPN for instance, they may get a fake IP address, every time they open your survey link.

Also, if many people from the same network (for example students in a school library) open your survey, all of them would have the same IP-addresses.

Tip:

If you want to make sure that a respondent does not “cheat”, it’s a great idea to add an external ID to the survey link that you send to them. This will empower you to track how many times respondents have actually provided their feedback.

Learn more about making your surveys and forms compliant with GDPR.

Limiting number of participations

SurveyLegend also allows you to limit the number of participations. If this feature is enabled, a respondent can participate in a survey only one time, from the same browser. Read more about limiting number of participation in a survey here.

This feature uses cookies to work. Therefore, if a respondent opens your survey link in another web-browser, or cleans the browser’s cache, they can participate in the survey again.