HETUS Pilot Group 8 Privacy procedures and ethical issues Kimberly Fisher, Centre for Time Use Research – co-ordinator External consultant Kai Ludwigs 11 January 2016

Key considerations for surveys Need to ensure respondents’ anonymity Address data security and ethical issues associated new survey technologies Time use surveys offer value for money from the range of applications associated with the cost of collecting instruments from each person – value for money realised with use of the data

Need to balance Privacy of respondents and people they see on diary days Integrity of data storage Access to data

Topics covered by Group 8 Privacy and ethical issues carried forward from previous survey designs Protecting participants in on-line and app environments Best practice for anonymity Preserving data for long-term use Promotion of use of time use data

Privacy issues carried forward Ensure no detail in data specifically identifies any participant questionnaire items about occupation, education qualifications, health, etc. sufficiently general that any specific diary account could apply to hundreds of people age capping for oldest participants (recommend select an age 85=85 or older as opposed to not collecting diaries from older people)

Privacy issues carried forward Ensure no diary account exposes an individual activity codes not too specific only two days from individuals, not enough to model or predict the behaviour of specific people Protect contact details of sampled respondents data stored in separate, off-line files not released by data collection agencies restricted access to region of residence data

Privacy issues carried forward Special cases in Scandinavian countries Denmark, longitudinal tracking of some sample members across surveys Sampling respondents from national registers and attaching some data on persons and households from national records Retain capacity to prevent a link from time use data to any other national database or record

Concerns with current privacy policies No instance of any respondent in a time use survey being identified in public Some anonymised microdata (Albania, Espa ña ) on public websites, some public use microdata (France, Italy, UK) easily accessed

Concerns with current privacy policies Difficult for researchers to access some surveys Not make best use of public money funding survey, or time / effort of survey team & diarists Difficult to match geographically relevant additional variables to data

Protecting diarists in on-line and app environments New survey technologies make data collection easier, speed process of translating surveys into microdata – but new technologies also collect Metadata which tracks specific location, movement, use of devices Governments capturing this metadata

Protecting diarists in on-line and app environments Devices can capture personal information Devices can be hacked, hijacked or infected Transmission of data can be tracked, hijacked Meaning of privacy being redefined in on-line environment

Protecting diarists in on-line and app environments Participants may share survey participation on social media – sharing may be incidental rather than deliberate – but once record posted on-line that content will never completely disappear Not only add warnings not to comment on participation on-line, but also programme app & web diaries to block sharing

Protecting diarists in on-line and app environments Diaries & devices collect information on people in contact diarists – who have not given consent & may not know they are being tracked Need to protect privacy of people who contact the diarist – data security relates to a wider range of people then just the sampled respondents

Protecting diarists in on-line and app environments Diaries & devices make access to original own words easier – many policy uses for this information recoding daily activities in terms of physical activity or environmental impact of behaviour analysis of changing use of language, reporting of activities Need to ensure anonymity of written accounts

Protecting diarists – need to promote best practice Encryption, safe transmission of data and metadata Encrypted, off-line, backed-up of sensitive data Informed consent for survey participation and long-term use of the data Protect interests of people around diarists

Preserving data for long-term use Ensuring public use files in archives with long- term preservation policies (files checked for corruption regularly, updated as software updates, saved in formats amenable to be read by many devices / software packages) Preserve documentation about the design, collection, data processing and microdata file production phases for long-term use

Preserving data for long-term use This matters – people’s behaviours often change slowly need long-term perspective to monitor changing environmental impact of behaviour, transition toward or away from gender equality Make best use of effort and resources expended to collect the data if data are used for the long term

Promotion of analysis of time use Every policy area has time dimensions – time use data relevant to many areas that presently make little or no use of this data Minimal training and support for analysis of time use data, HETUS project can expand the use of this activity by collaborating with researchers producing training resources Specifically require users to create resources in exchange for data access

Pilot Group 8 Priorities Identify privacy and ethical issues that arise in relation to: tests conducted for other pilot groups new technologies used in data collection on-line environment in which people complete even paper diaries Promote access to public release microdata and use of this data in policy analysis