What legislation applies to paid focus groups? Do labour laws?
<p>There is a group on Facebook that connects people with local paid focus groups. Usually there are screening questions that are asked over Facebook messenger. Some examples of such screening questions have included age, gender, citizenship and even who you voted for in a federal election. To my understanding it would be illegal for an employer to ask such questions, but is it different in a focus group? Are PIPA laws being violated since it's being discussed over Facebook?</p>

<p><a href="/questions/tagged/united-states" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;united-states&#39;" rel="tag">united-states</a></p>
<p>In U.S. law, focus group participants are considered independent contractors, rather than employees, and screening questions, even if potentially implicating discriminatory matters, are bona fide occupational qualifications (to the extent that discrimination laws apply) for the purpose of gathering representative samples of public opinion.</p>
<p>I don't know how Canadian law would address the situation.</p>

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