What happens with my data?
A research project accumulates a lot of data, some of which are personal. Here you find information on what kind of data we gather and how we ensure that they are protected and how your anonymity is guaranteed.
Contact details
In order to obtain results that are as representative as possible, a random sample of people from all over Switzerland is essential. While the exact procedure is described here, it is basically a multi-step process in which we first randomly drew municipalities, then addresses and finally individuals.
For the last step, the drawing of individual people, we rely on existing contact databases. For this purpose, the residents' registration offices of the respective municipalities provided us with the relevant information. The data supplied includes first and last name, address and, if available, gender.
These data are only used for establishing contact (invitation to participate in the study) and are subsequently deleted. It is not possible to link this contact data with the information provided in the survey. During the study, the contact data is stored in a local network to which only the team members have access. In addition, the contact data is encrypted using Veracrypt and thus protected from any third-party access even within the local network.
Survey data
A large amount of person-specific data is collected in the course of the survey, which is conducted twice. The information provided in the survey, for example about your relationship with your neighbors, is of great value to us, as it allows us to empirically test correlations and influences. At the same time, it is sensitive information that should not be attributed to individual persons or that one might not like to share.
It is of great concern to us that all your data is anonymous at all times and that no conclusions can be drawn about your person. In this respect we ensure that
- The information you provide in the survey is not linked to your contact details.
- The data is anonymized and unique combinations of characteristics are only shown in aggregated form.
- No data and statements are made about individual observations (people). Rather, we investigate general correlations and influences: For example, we are not interested in your personal income, but how income and neighborhood relationships are related.
The data will be stored on a local network, to which only members of the team have access. In addition, the corresponding drive is encrypted using Veracrypt and your data is thus protected at all times.
Prior to making the data available to the scientific community for free, non-commercial use (at www.swissubase.ch), they are cleaned and checked for potentially identifying unique characteristics.