Why BlockSurvey?

“Privacy is not something that I’m merely entitled to, it’s an absolute prerequisite.” - Marlon Brando, Actor

BlockSurvey came out as an idea during 'Can't Be Evil' hackathon conducted by Blockstack in July 2019. The theme we had in mind is to build something on Society 3.0. While evaluating multiple ideas, we were using survey tools to validate our ideas with friends and family. During this time, we got a realization and questioned how safe is our ideas in these survey platforms of today. And it made us to question how we were interacting with surveys of today?

On reflection, our participation with surveys over the years has been very minimal and it was a conscious choice not to participate. This is primarily due to a lack of trust in humans while surveying. More than the intended data provided, we lose give our private data which we don't want to. Each time, we have seen an employee engagement or satisfaction surveys ran by an employer, we realized we have never answered authentically because we had a feeling that we are being watched or the privacy element is unconfirmed. We interviewed multiple people and asked if they felt the same. To our surprise, it is the same reason.

How can we solve this? How to regain trust while doing surveys? What if, we provide a system where survey takers answer from the private space to share authentic and genuine feedback/suggestions/opinions without being judged. What if, all the data collected is seen only by the survey creator alone and not by anyone else. Nor the supervisor/manager or the platform provider by putting an end to all the leaks. This led us to create privacy-focused surveys, polls & forms platform.

We did some secondary research in this space and below are the findings in the survey industry. In a horrendous and bizarre incident involving online surveys, around 6 million accounts were hacked from CashCrate – a site that facilitates users to take online surveys and get paid in return. This breach allowed hackers to have access to accounts that were created as early as 2006. The hacked data included – email addresses, passwords, physical addresses and names of users.

2018 - June 27, the day Spanish online survey firm – Typeform, realized that there was a security breach causing the firm to lose private survey data for tens of thousands of its customers using the platform. Hackers gained access to everything from personal details to email addresses and other private information that has put many survey participants at risk. Reddit, in particular, suffered heavy damage as personal details of its large-scale user's survey were exposed.

All of the above data breach incidents point out to two important things –

• Data breaches have been consistent and seem unstoppable
• There is a decreasing confidence and trust levels of Public when it comes to surveys, polls or sharing of information online

Scary isn’t it? And quite unfair too. What with all the precious personal data thrown out in the open for anybody and everybody to access and misuse. A survey conducted by the popular Harris Poll (2017) stated that ‘’Privacy’’ is the #1 priority for Americans with a whopping 82% of preferring a technology that protects their privacy.

This begs the question –

• Are current survey tools safe enough?
• Sadly, they aren’t safe enough.

Where BlockSurvey comes into the picture?

Upon constant research and trials, we found that there are numerous problems with the current survey tools. So, what did we do? We decided to counter these problems with our unique surveying solution. With the use of Blockchain tech from Blockstack- we came up with a methodology to conduct private, secure and anonymous surveys.

BlockSurvey also focusses on making surveys interesting and kill the fatigue factor steering participants away from‘another boring’ survey towards an interesting survey attempt/process.

Benefits of using BlockSurvey

1. Share Answers, Not Identity
2. End to End Encryption
3. Smooth Surveying Experience
4. Advanced Analytics
5. Use Elegant Design Themes
6. Simple To Build

Conclusion: We believe privacy on surveys, polls & forms is critical. Having a privacy-focused approach to this could lead to make better decision making overall by benefitting all the players involved in the process of surveying.

Want to try BlockSurvey? Get started here.