Privacy policy

Prof. Dr. Mazda Adli, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, as part of the study management, is responsible for data processing in the sense of data protection law. Data processing will continue to be carried out by Nomad Projects. The contact details of the study management are given below.

The legal provisions of data protection applicable to the study according to the European Data Protection Regulation (Art. 6 para. 1 lit.a) and the Berlin State Data Protection Act are met for all data. Data on nationality and origin can be classified as sensitive according to Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a and Art. 9 para. 2 lit. a EU-DSGVO. All pseudonymized study data collected in the course of the study will be stored under lock and key for ten years on the server of Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin in accordance with the prescribed period of the German Research Foundation. Only after your explicit consent that we may contact you again about follow-up studies or about future events, your contact data (in the form of the email address) will be encrypted and stored separately from the study data, also for 10 years on the server of the Charité and then deleted. The email addresses are forwarded in encrypted form to the cooperation partner Futurium Berlin, which operates the newsletter system via the newsletter provider CleverReach. The cooperation partner, as well as CleverReach have committed to perform the data storage and data processing in compliance with EU-DSGVO. This consent can be revoked by you at any time and your email address deleted.

The collected data is stored, in pseudonymous form, in the European Economic Area (EEA). However, for the purpose of possible future research collaborations with institutions outside the EEA, the data may be transferred to and stored at a destination outside the EEA. In this regard, it is possible that the data will be processed by third parties and/or project participants outside the EEA who provide services to the project for research purposes. In this context, we would like to point out that we cannot guarantee that the third countries provide a comparable level of data protection as is provided in the EEA by the EU-DSGVO. In this case, we can assure that the pseudonymised data will not be sold and will only be passed on to projects after a Use-And-Access process and the ethics vote then available and will only be processed there in pseudonymised form according to the specified standards. The cooperation partners will always be data processors in the sense of the EU-DSGVO and conclude a data use contract with Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin. The study management is very keen to ensure that the cooperation partners also comply with the high European standard of data protection.

The following data is collected by the app:

Pseudonyms and sensitive information about you as a person

When you use the Urban Mind app, you provide information about your age, gender, nationality, origin, educational attainment, income category, lifestyle and well-being. You also provide information about your current environment, feelings, thoughts and behaviours. You will not be asked to provide your name, contact details or any other information that could identify you. However, you will have the option to subscribe to newsletters and updates about the study via your email address. This option is voluntary and in this case your contact details will not be merged with the study data. You are encouraged not to enter any personal information in the free text field provided for email address. (for detailed information on how to voluntarily provide your email address, please refer to the consent form in your app at any time).

Geographic location

With your explicit consent, the app collects information about your geographic location using your phone's GPS sensor. Urban Mind collects location data from sources such as GPS, Wi-Fi and cell towers once you have installed the app and given your consent for the app to track your location. You can decide whether your location is tracked all the time, only when you use the Urban Mind app or not at all. You can stop or change the collection of your location data at any time by going to the settings of your phone via the "Settings" menu of the app. Theoretically, a person with the appropriate technical knowledge and, if they were to gain illegitimate access to the data, it would be possible to deduce the place of residence and work of a participating person and thus their identity. However, since the data is encrypted and stored on firewall-protected servers, access is password-protected and the data is only forwarded in an access-protected manner, the probability of this happening is considered very low.

Photos

Only with your explicit consent at the beginning of your study participation, by asking your smartphone to activate your camera, will you have the opportunity to take a photo of your current surroundings after each data collection via the app. You are encouraged not to take photos that include faces or identifying things (e.g. street or doorbell signs). Nevertheless, the photos are potentially identifying data and will not be published if people are identified, but will be deleted immediately. The images you upload are subject to a Creative Commons Zero licence. They are linked to the study data via the User ID. This means that you cannot register for copyright. You can decide at the beginning of your study participation and subsequently at any time via the "Settings" of your smartphone whether you allow access to the camera of your smartphone all the time, only when using the Urban Mind app or not at all. You can change or revoke this choice at any time by going to your phone's settings via the app's "Settings" menu. The photo data is encrypted and forwarded by Nomad Projects to authorised employees of the Charité, where it is decrypted and checked for personal identification. If photos identifying a person are found, they are immediately deleted from the Charité server.

Information about the terminal device

When you use the Urban Mind app, IP addresses are not stored for privacy reasons. However, the app uses Google Firebase, which stores device models and operating system versions in its data centres. Thus, only the device model and the installed operating system (e.g. iOS, Android) can be assigned to participants - but the participant remains anonymous.

Feedback through individualised report

The app includes an algorithm that automatically (machine) processes your data related to specific questions, summarises it, and provides it as individualised feedback to you via the app. This serves to provide you with feedback on your input.

Information on deleting study data

During your study participation, you can delete all your study data (concerns pseudonymous and sensitive as well as photo and GPS data) from the app and the app server at any time via "Settings" in the app. If you have already completed your study participation (after 7 days), this can only be done if you contact us with your User ID (see above).

Head of Study

Prof. Dr. med. Mazda Adli

Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin
Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Charité Campus Mitte
Charité Platz 1, 10117 Berlin
Phone: +49 30 450 517 296
E-Mail: mazda.adli@charité.de

Prof. Dr. phil. Joerg Fingerhut

Berlin School of Mind and Brain
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin
E-Mail: joerg.fingerhut@hu-berlin.de

Scientific cooperation partners in the project

Futurium gGmbH

Director: Dr. Stefan Brandt
Alexanderufer 2, 10117 Berlin
Phone: +49-30-408 18 97 77
Fax: +49-30-408 18 97 99
E-mail: info@futurium.de

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Berlin School of Mind and Brain
Contact: Prof. Dr. phil. Joerg Fingerhut
Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin
Phone: +49-179-7792419
Fax: + 49-30-2093 1802
E-Mail: joerg.fingerhut@hu-berlin.de

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