GDPR in research covers the legal and operational obligations that apply when enterprises collect personal data from research participants, including names, contact details, video recordings, and verbatim responses. Under GDPR, research teams must establish a lawful basis for processing, obtain informed consent, provide clear privacy notices, and honour participant rights including access, rectification, and erasure. For qualitative research operations specifically, GDPR compliance shapes how recordings are stored, how long transcripts are retained, and whether data can be transferred outside the European Economic Area. Research operations teams that run studies at scale across multiple markets face compounding compliance complexity, making data governance a core part of study design rather than an afterthought.