Quantified Citizen Privacy Notice

Quantified Citizen Privacy Notice

(This section applies to the Quantified Citizen app, see below for Quantified Citizen Pro.)

Last updated: 2022-12-02

As the creator of the Quantified Citizen app (“QC App”), Quantified Citizen is committed to protecting personal information and complying with applicable privacy legislation.

QC App allows users to collect information and gain insights on themselves related to physical and mental health. Doing so can also contribute to insights about how different ideas about health and wellness operate in the real world. Users are also given the opportunity to contribute their information to projects run by companies and academic researchers by contributing their data via surveys, health data, and performing various tasks delivered through the app.

This Privacy Notice explains our privacy practices. By using QC App, you are agreeing to our Privacy Notice and terms of use. If you do not want QC App to use or disclose your personal information in the ways identified in this Privacy Notice, you should not use QC App.

You may choose to use QC App to contribute to public knowledge while getting personalized insights. We will inform you of why and how we collect, use and disclose personal information, obtain consent where required, and only handle personal information in a manner that a reasonable person would consider appropriate in the circumstances.

Accountability

Quantified Citizen’s Privacy Officer is responsible for our privacy management program and procedures to protect Personal Information, for receiving your privacy-related questions and for providing you with information about our privacy practices.

You can contact our Privacy Officer at:
210-128 Hastings St. W
Vancouver, BC V6B 1G8
Canada
Email: privacy@quantifiedcitizen.com

Personal Information

Personal information means information that can identify an individual or information about an identifiable individual.

Collecting Personal Information

As a QC App user, you do not have to provide personal information to create an account.

When you join the app, you may be able to hide your identity using an email relay service. When you use this option, QC does not collect any personal information about you.

As a result, Quantified Citizen cannot identify or connect our users to their accounts, activities, or the research they are participating in and may not be able to provide technical support for specific accounts.

You will be assigned a unique Citizen ID when you join QC. Your Citizen ID is used to create your profile so that we can collect all your information for you. Your Citizen ID is not shared with anyone.

Your Citizen ID will not include personal information unless you add this yourself.

When you choose to participate in a study, you may choose to provide indirect identifiers, for example demographic information, but doing so is completely voluntary. Keep in mind that the more indirect identifiers you provide, the more likely it is that these pieces of information can be combined and used do identify you.

When you complete a questionnaire, program or study, data is sent to be stored and you may choose to save your results in your QC App. You may export this information from the app and share it. This information may contain data that could be used to identify you.

If you have given permission for the QC App to passively collect your data, for example your steps or sleep data, then you must understand that if you give access to researchers to this data, you are giving access to your historical data collected on your app as well, if you've given permission for this.

If you choose to create your own study as a research client using the QC App, we may collect personal information in order to authenticate your identity.

We generate anonymous data from your use of the QC App, such that no individual can be uniquely identified or linked to the information. Anonymous data is the property of Quantified Citizen and not subject to privacy laws. We may use it to monitor and improve the QC App, share it with users and third parties (e.g., researchers), sell it, or find other uses for it.

The QC App does not knowingly or intentionally collect personal information from users who are under the age of 18.

Consent

The QC App will collect, use or disclose your personal information based on your consent, which may be explicit (e.g., where you must tick a box to indicate your consent to join a study) or implicit, where the reason for the collection is obvious and voluntary (e.g., to save a completed questionnaire results).

Researchers will collect, use or disclose your personal information based on your consent, which they collect using the Informed Consent Form. Please review your Informed Consent Form or contact the researcher for more information about their use of your personal information.

Joining Studies

When you join a study, you will be assigned a unique participant ID. For each study you join, you will have a unique participant ID. Any information you provide under your unique participant ID for a study will not be associated with any other study. Each participant ID will be associated with your Citizen ID so that you can track the studies you have participated in and researchers can provide results.

QC will look for studies and make suggestions to you. If you have already completed surveys, then we will let you know how much you’ve already completed of a new suggested study.

Your physician or other health care professionals may suggest studies and provide you with a physician code to join the study. This code does not identify you.

Some studies require participants to identify themselves. Participation in any study is voluntary. If you are not comfortable providing the personal information that the researcher is requesting, then do not participate in the study.

Using and disclosing personal information

The QC App will use the information it collects, including your personal information if you choose to provide it, to match you to studies.

You will have the option to use information you have added to your profile, including personal information, to prefill questionnaires. You will be given the option to review your profile information first and ensure its accuracy before selecting a prefill option.

Quantified Citizen will not sell, rent, trade or otherwise disclose your personal information to any third parties or outside companies for any purpose other than those specified at the time of collection unless we obtain your consent to do so.

Quantified Citizen may disclose Personal Information to comply with any laws, regulations, court orders, subpoenas, or other legal process or investigation and to protect us and other individuals from harm.

Who can see your personal information

  • QC will have an aggregate view of your data across studies but you will be anonymous if you have not provided any personal information.
  • Researchers, including citizen scientists, will be able to see information you provide for a study.
  • You may choose to provide information from the QC App to other researchers (e.g., a questionnaire you have completed), to other QC App users, or share outside of the app (for instance, saving to cloud storage, posting to social media accounts, sending to your friends via email) through your QC App dashboard
  • Authorized Quantified Citizen support staff can access information you provide based on their role and need-to-know in order to fulfill their duties.
While study participants cannot see the information from other users/participants, all study participants will be notified if research is published based on aggregate information and may have the opportunity to view their data compared to group averages from other participants for studies that they are participating in.

 

 

 

 

 

Retaining personal information

We will retain personal information only as long as necessary to fulfill the identified purposes or a legal or business purpose.

At any time you may delete your account. You may request that your data is deleted from Quantified Citizen’s servers in compliance with regulations by emailing privacy@quantifiedcitizen.com. In cases where you consented to share your information with a third party such as a company or academic researcher it may not be possible to remove your anonymized data from a dataset.

Ensuring accuracy

We rely on you to ensure that any personal information you provide while using the QC App is as accurate, complete and up-to-date. You are welcome to make changes and corrections to personal information at any time by updating your profile and account settings.

Because the QC App does not collect information that will personally identify you or connect you to your account, we are not able to provide password resets or update your information. If you would like more information, please contact us at privacy@quantifiedcitizen.com

Our Location

Our company and the services used to provide the QC App are located in Canada. Researchers may be located worldwide. Please contact researcher for more information on their location and the location of their research data.

 

 

 

 

 

Securing Personal Information

We use industry standard security practices and take reasonable steps to protect your personal information from unauthorized access, collection, use, disclosure, copying, modification or disposal or similar risks. We train our team to follow privacy and security practices, including the principles of privacy by design.

When you use the QC App, some data is cached in the memory of the device. Cached data is encrypted and kept on the device as long as you are logged in, even if the application is put in the background. The data is deleted from the device when you sign out of the app and does not persist. Be careful about leaving any apps with personal information open on your device, as other people can access them.

We review and update our security policies and controls as technology changes to ensure ongoing personal information security, however please bear in mind that no Internet or email transmission is ever fully secure or error free and no security system is impenetrable. We cannot fully guarantee the confidentiality of any information that you share with us.

 

 

 

 

 

Individual access

Due to the anonymous account system used in the app we cannot identify individual account holders in order to assist with updating accounts or provide specific information about how your information has been disclosed. But we will provide you with information regarding how specific study data have been shared if you contact us at privacy@quantifiedcitizen.com

Additional information

Email is not a secure method of communication. We cannot guarantee the security of email messages you send to us.

It’s important to guard your privacy when you are online. If the QC App contains links to other websites, this Privacy Notice does not govern those websites. Whether we have posted those links or other organizations or individuals have, you should read their privacy policies and make an informed decision about whether you want to use those websites or their services.

 

 

 

 

 

Changes to this Privacy Notice

Quantified Citizen may amend this Privacy Notice from time to time. We will post the date of the most recent changes and provide previous versions upon request. If we make significant changes, we will provide a more prominent notice (including notification through the QC App if appropriate.)

Questions and Complaints

ou may send your privacy-related questions, concerns or complaints to our Privacy Officer who is responsible for ensuring our compliance with this notice and with the appropriate privacy legislation.

210-128 Hastings St. W
Vancouver, BC V6B 1G8
Canada
Email: privacy@quantifiedcitizen.com

If our Privacy Officer is unable to resolve the concern, you may also write to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia.

Quantified Citizen Pro App Privacy Notice

Last updated: 2022-03-07

Quantified Citizen is the creator of the Quantified Citizen Pro app (“QC Pro”). Quantified Citizen is committed to protected personal information and complying with applicable privacy legislation.

Researchers use QC Pro to run research studies and collect study data from participants. You may choose to participate in these research studies running in QC Pro. When you participate in a study, QC Pro will transmit the information you provide, which may include personal information (“Participant Data”), to researchers.

This Privacy Notice explains QC Pro privacy practices. By using QC Pro, you are agreeing to our Privacy Notice and terms of use. If you do not want QC Pro to use or disclose your personal information in the ways identified in this Privacy Notice, you should not use QC Pro.

Accountability

Quantified Citizen’s Privacy Officer is responsible for our privacy management program and procedures to protect Personal Information, for receiving your privacy-related questions and for providing you with information about our privacy practices.

You can contact our Privacy Officer at:
210-128 Hastings St. W
Vancouver, BC V6B 1G8
Canada
Email: privacy@quantifiedcitizen.com

Personal Information

Personal information means information that can identify an individual or information about an identifiable individual.

Creating a QC Pro Account

As QC Pro user, you do not have to provide personal information to create an account.

When you join the app, you may be able to hide your identity using an email relay service. When you use this option, QC does not collect any personal information about you.

As a result, Quantified Citizen cannot identify or connect QC Pro users to their accounts or the research they are participating in and may not be able to provide technical support for specific accounts.

Collecting Personal Information

You will be assigned a unique Citizen ID when you join QC. Your Citizen ID is used to create your profile so that we can collect all your information for you. Your Citizen ID is not shared with anyone.

Your Citizen ID will not include personal information unless you add this yourself.

When you use the QC Pro app, Participant Data is collected and used by the researcher. The researcher will only use Participant Data in the ways described in the Informed Consent Form that participants must sign prior to joining the study.

Some studies require participants to identify themselves. Participation in any study is voluntary. If you are not comfortable providing the personal information that the researcher is requesting, then do not participate in the study.

If you have given permission for QC Pro to passively collect your data, for example your step count or sleep data, and provide it as part of your Participant Data, then you must understand you are giving access to your historical data collected on your app as well, if you've given permission for this.

QC Pro transmits Participant Data but does not collect or use Participant Data for its own purposes, or retain Participant Data on its systems.

QC Pro does not knowingly or intentionally collect personal information from users who are under the age of 18.

Consent

Researchers will collect, use or disclose your personal information based on your consent, which they collect using the Informed Consent Form. Please review your Informed Consent Form or contact the researcher for more information about their use of your personal information.

 

 

 

 

 

Who can see your personal information

A researcher will be able to see your Participant Data.

Authorized Quantified Citizen support staff may access information you provide based on their role and need-to-know in order to fulfill their duties.

Other research participants cannot see your Participation Data.

Retaining personal information

Researchers will retain your personal information as described in their Informed Consent Form. Please review your Informed Consent Form or contact the researcher for more information about their use of your Participant Data.

Ensuring accuracy

Please contact the researcher if you are concerned about the accuracy of your Participant Data.

Our Location

Our company and the services used to provide QC Pro are located in Canada. Researchers may be located worldwide. Please contact the researcher for more information on their location and the location of your Participant Data.

Securing Personal Information

Participant Data is transmitted to researchers using QC Pro. We use industry standard security practices and take reasonable steps to protect your personal information from unauthorized access, collection, use, disclosure, copying, modification or disposal or similar risks. We train our team to follow privacy and security practices, including the principles of privacy by design.

When you use QC Pro, some data is cached in the memory of the device. Cached data is encrypted and kept on the device as long as you are logged in, even if the application is put in the background. The data is deleted from the device when you sign out of the app and does not persist. Be careful about leaving any apps with personal information open on your device, as other people can access them.

We review and update our security policies and controls as technology changes to ensure ongoing personal information security, however please bear in mind that no Internet or email transmission is ever fully secure or error free and no security system is impenetrable. We cannot fully guarantee the confidentiality of any information that you share with us.

Individual access

If you would like to access your Participant Data, please contact the researcher directly. QC Pro cannot identify research participants, so we cannot assist with requests to access Participant Data.

Additional information

Email is not a secure method of communication. We cannot guarantee the security of email messages you send to us.

It’s important to guard your privacy when you are online. If QC Pro contains links to other websites, this Privacy Notice does not govern those websites. Whether we have posted those links or other organizations or individuals have, you should read their privacy policies and make an informed decision about whether you want to use those websites or their services.

 

 

 

 

 

Changes to this Privacy Notice

Quantified Citizen may amend this QC Pro Privacy Notice from time to time. We will post the date of the most recent changes and provide previous versions upon request. If we make significant changes, we will provide a more prominent notice (including notification through QC Pro if appropriate).

 

 

 

 

 

Questions and Complaints

You may send your privacy-related questions, concerns or complaints to our Privacy Officer who is responsible for ensuring our compliance with this notice and with the appropriate privacy legislation.

210-128 Hastings St. W
Vancouver, BC V6B 1G8
Canada
Email: privacy@quantifiedcitizen.com

If our Privacy Officer is unable to resolve the concern, you may also write to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia.