Sponsor standards
Commission research people can understand and choose.
A sponsor purchases the defined aggregate Civic Pulse product. It does not purchase unrestricted control of participant identity records, private profiles or future civic behaviour.
Proposed missions are reviewed for participant risk, privacy, neutrality, research integrity and compatibility with these standards.
Disclose who is behind the mission
No hidden sponsorship. Participants must see the sponsor, research purpose, requested access, intended uses, reward, retention and publication rules before deciding whether to join.
Ask a legitimate research question
Define the jurisdiction, eligibility, methodology, timing and aggregate outputs. Do not use a mission for voter suppression, coercion or manipulation disguised as civic research. A mission must not promise the sponsor a preferred finding.
Respect participant authority
Use only the data and processing capabilities authorized for the mission. Do not seek root identity keys, raw-profile purchases or unrelated reuse of private information. A participant's profile is not sponsor inventory.
Protect the aggregate boundary
No re-identification attempts or attempts to expose individual political profiles through small groups or combined datasets. Respect the mission's minimum group sizes, suppression rules and release limits.
The defined research product may include aggregate distributions, trends and conditions with methodology and limitations. It must not become a back door to direct participant targeting.
Keep compensation independent of viewpoint
Eligibility and contribution requirements must be disclosed in advance. Supporting, opposing or qualifying a proposal must not change the reward because of that viewpoint. Official voting behaviour must not determine compensation.
Report the limits
Disclose recruitment, sampling, source coverage, uncertainty and response provenance. Distinguish fresh human confirmation from participant-authorized agent execution. Do not claim that a participating group automatically represents an entire jurisdiction.
Begin with a reviewable brief
An inquiry does not guarantee acceptance. Describe the intended research and outputs so the proposed mission can be assessed before any participant is invited or data access is requested.