Privacy policy

Information and consent for the TrackYourStress app study

Dear study participant!

Thank you for your willingness to participate in the TrackYourStress (TYS) study. Please read this study information carefully for an explanation of the study and contact the individuals listed below with any questions. Your participation in this study is voluntary. You may withdraw from the study at any time and without giving reasons. Refusal to participate or withdrawal from the study will not have any adverse consequences for you. The responsible ethics committee of the University of Würzburg has issued a positive opinion on this study as well as on the study information and the privacy statement.

What is the purpose of this study and how does the study proceed?

The aim of TYS is to investigate stress and coping (= stress management) as well as possible influencing factors in everyday life by means of a smartphone application. To this end, the TYS app repeatedly collects data on stress and coping in everyday life as well as possible influencing factors via questionnaires. We would like to explicitly point out that we are not providing a medical device with the TYS app. TYS offers a good way to measure the course of stress and coping and to determine under which conditions stress is stronger or weaker. Our app is not intended for therapy. It is not expected to worsen. If you notice any negative changes, please stop using the app immediately and see a doctor or therapist.

User information on the privacy of the TrackYourStress app

Voluntariness of your participation and right of withdrawal

Your participation is voluntary. You can revoke your consent for the future at any time verbally or in writing and without giving reasons. There will be no disadvantages for you as a result of the revocation. In this case, your personal data will be deleted immediately. The processing of the data that has taken place to date will not become unlawful as a result. The legal basis for the data processing is your consent (Art. 6 para. 1a and Art. 9 para. 2a of the DSGVO).

Your data protection rights

You can request information from the Institute of Clinical Epidemiology and Biometry at the University of Würzburg about the data stored about you within the framework of the legal requirements. If incorrect personal data has been processed, you have the right to have it corrected. You may request the deletion of personal data or the restriction of processing or data transfer.

Contact details

The responsible party for data processing within the meaning of the General Data Protection Regulation is

Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg,
Sanderring 2,
97070 Würzburg
Tel.: 0931 / 31-0 or
E-Mail: info@uni-wuerzburg.de

The University of Würzburg has appointed a data protection officer. You can contact him with any concerns about your data or with a complaint about data protection violations. His contact details are as follows:

Data Protection Officer of the University of Würzburg,
Sanderring 2,
97070 Würzburg
Tel.: 0931 7 31-0 or
E-Mail: datenschutz@uni-wuerzburg.de
or at: https://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/universitaet/rechtsgrundlagen/datenschutzbeauftragter/

You also have a right of appeal to any data protection supervisory authority. You can find a list of the supervisory authorities in Germany at: https://www.bfdi.bund.de/DE/Infothek/Anschriften_Links/anschriften_links-node.html

The responsible data supervisory authority is:
The Bavarian State Commissioner for Data Protection,
P.O. Box 22 12 19,
80502 Munich,
E-Mail: poststelle@datenschutz-bayern.de

Storage location for data, especially personal data

All data is stored on an encrypted server of the University Hospital of Würzburg. The data exchange between your terminal device and the server takes place via the Internet, based on a secure SSL connection. A transfer of personal data to a third country or to international companies or organizations is excluded.

Permissions of the app

No permissions are required to use the app with full functionality. If you grant the app permission for location data (Android and iOS operating systems), we can use this data for scientific analyses. However, this is not required to fully use the app.

Use of location data

If you grant permission, the GPS data of your smartphone will be stored to enable scientific analysis on the use of the app. However, you can also use the app without granting permission for GPS data.

Other location data is not retrieved, processed or stored. In particular, no geotracking is performed by the app. This GPS data is only coarsened, i.e., only stored with an accuracy of 11 km, and only used for scientific purposes.

Use of push services

The app uses push services from the operating system manufacturers. These are short messages that are shown on the user's display with the user's consent and with which the user is actively informed about newly available questionnaires or news. In the case of the use of push services, a device token from Apple or a registration ID from Google may be assigned. These are used by us solely for the purpose of providing the push services. These are only encrypted, anonymized device IDs. We cannot draw any conclusions about the individual user. You can decide during the installation of the app if you want to use this functionality. To unsubscribe from the push messages later, you can use the unsubscribe option in the app. You can find this under the settings.

Research purposes and scientific publications

The findings from anonymized app use may be published in scientific journals as part of research projects. However, in doing so, it will in no way be possible to identify your personal identity based on your personal data collected and processed by the app.

Possibility to discuss further questions

If you have any further questions in connection with this study, please do not hesitate to contact the following persons.

Project Management:

Prof. Dr. Rüdiger Pryss
ruediger.pryss@uni-wuerzburg.de

Project staff:

Prof. Dr. Thomas Probst
thomas.probst@donau-uni.ac.at

Prof. Dr. Dennis John
dennis.john@evhn.de

Prof. Dr. Johannes Schobel
Johannes.Schobel@hnu.de

Carsten Vogel
carsten.vogel@uni-wuerzburg.de

Teresa O’Rourke
teresa.orourke@donau-uni.ac.at