Online survey
Receive election survey SMS: spam or legitimate?
January 9, 2025 – 10:49 a.mReading time: 2 min.
Before the upcoming federal election, election researchers are out and about who will also contact people via SMS. This is how you can tell if the message is real.
“We ask you to take part”: Opinion research institutes are currently sending out messages again in order to be able to create a picture of the mood of the population before the federal election. Such messages are also sent via SMS. They often contain a link that directs recipients to an online survey.
The Elections Research Group, for example, sends such messages. The institute states on its website that it regularly carries out such surveys on behalf of Second German Television (ZDF). The facility also explains how recipients can distinguish SMS from spam messages.
The most important criterion: During market research, no data would be collected that would allow conclusions to be drawn about the participants. If recipients have to enter personal information, it is not a legitimate message, but rather spam.
The opinion research institute can generate telephone numbers. The institute selects numbers from the results. The facility cannot draw any conclusions about their owner. “Beyond the telephone number, we have no information about the person contacted via SMS,” writes the Elections research group.
No, participation in the surveys is voluntary. If you no longer wish to be contacted, you should send an email with the relevant number to the opinion research institute. This puts your phone number on a blacklist. You should no longer receive text messages in the future.
“Calls to private households for the purpose of market or social research are generally permitted,” writes the Elections research group. The opinion polls served exclusively for research purposes and were covered by Article 5 of the Basic Law.
If it is not a legitimate SMS from a polling institute, you should be careful. Do not open links from messages from unknown senders or agree to install a new app. Do not provide any personal information and delete the SMS sender’s number.