Privacy

PRIVACY AND CONFIDENTIALITY - POL.IS SURVEY

Participants’ privacy is protected when visiting this project website to take the Pol.is survey. All of the privacy/confidentiality protections can be found on the Pol.is site at https://pol.is/privacy. 

PRIVACY AND CONFIDENTIALITY - FOCUS GROUPS ON ZOOM

We will protect the identities of all participants in the following ways: 

• The oral, internet-based consent required of participants will not involve any identifiable information.   
• Focus group members will be asked not to share the information discussed during the group discussion with anyone outside of the group. 
• Participants will be informed that complete confidentiality cannot be guaranteed.  
• All emails collected for inviting participants to the Zoom will be discarded. 
• Participants’ data will be stored without any identifiers nor codes. 

We will maintain the confidentiality of all participants’ contributions, or their data, in the following ways: 

• The audio files of the focus group on a Zoom session will not include participants’ full names. No full names will be stated or recorded.   
• Focus group members may state their first name or nickname on their Zoom screen for purposes of conversation but no identifiable information will be linked to this or to private information.   
• Written transcripts of these sessions will also be stored on a password-protected Google Drive and only shared with members of the research team. 
• The audio files from the Zoom session will be stored on a password-protected hard drive and only shared with members of the research team.    
• Audio files will be destroyed after analysis and production of the podcast.   
• No full names or other private information will be used in any publication/podcast about this research. 
• Once the research has been completed, all data will be retained for three years, or longer as required by the study sponsor, and then destroyed.