Forum Discussion

Copper Contributor

Apr 27, 2020

How to reveal anonymous submissions in Microsoft Forms

Hi all, I'm relatively new to using Microsoft Forms, and I did not know that the default setting for MS Forms submissions was to show user feedback as "anonymous." My form is a simple yes or no ...

microsoft forms

Survey

RobElliott

Silver Contributor

Nov 27, 2020

What part of "anonymous" do you not understand? Any form which you have told a responder will be anonymous MUST be anonymous by law.

Karol Grodzicki

Copper Contributor

Nov 27, 2020

RobElliott I DO understand it. Although it all depends on local law - AFAIK not all countries even allow full anonymity (I guess example could be China).

Anyway, MS365 Terms&Conditions say "You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your Microsoft account" (and there are many other liability-related similar points). So if you use MS Forms to create an anonymous survey, you are also responsible for ensuring the anonymity. From technical PoV it's possible to fail it even accidentally. So it's worth knowing there is such a risk.

And of course, I strongly discourage abusing this the anonymity in this way (unless e.g. agreed by all participants). But we need to be conscious and transparent about this

YourStoryOurITSolution
Copper Contributor
Aug 06, 2021
Karol Grodzicki

I just tried doing a search as you referenced and it looks like they have fixed this as anonymous responses now show as anonymous and do not appear to be tied to any users or IPs.