Acceptable use policy

Platform account names and email addresses are not included in researcher dashboards or study-data exports. What your own study asks participants is yours to decide, under the ethics approval you hold — we are not going to second-guess an ethics board that has more standing on your study than we do.

You see a session identifier — the same code shown on anonymous study links — and nothing from the participant's platform account. We never expose a participant's account name or email address to a researcher, on any screen or in any export, and there is no setting that changes this.

Unless your own study materials ask for something identifying, you should assume the platform has not given you account-level identity. Collect only what your ethics approval and consent form cover.

This is the one obligation we will hold you to hardest, because it is the one that actually protects participants. Do not collect personal data your research question does not need.

It is not only our rule. You are the data controller for your study, so data minimisation is already your legal duty — under GDPR it is Article 5(1)(c), which requires the data you collect to be adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary. Most ethics committees apply the same test independently.

The practical version, before you add a field:

• Could you answer your research question without it? If yes, leave it out. "It might be interesting later" is not a reason.
• Would a coarser version do? An age band instead of a date of birth, a region instead of a full postcode, a country instead of a city. Almost always it would, and reduces the chance of accidental identification.
• Would a study-specific code do? If you need to recognise the same person across sessions, a code you issue does that without an email address or a name.

Deleting a field afterwards does not undo having collected it — the participant has already handed it over, and it has already been stored. The decision that matters is the one you make before the study goes live.

Some designs genuinely need them — a longitudinal study that re-contacts people, a clinical follow-up, course credit that has to be attributed. You may collect them, provided both of these are true:

• Your ethics or IRB approval covers collecting that specific information.
• Your consent form says plainly what you are collecting, why, how long you will keep it, and who to contact — before the participant starts.

Participation is voluntary throughout. A participant who is not comfortable with what a study asks can close the tab, and that is a legitimate outcome rather than a failure.

Details in this category deserve a deliberate decision rather than being swept into a demographics block by habit:

• First or last names, or initials
• Personal email addresses
• Phone numbers
• Date of birth
• Residential addresses, or full postal/ZIP codes
• Bank account or payment card details
• National ID numbers (SSN, Aadhaar, NI number)
• Passport or driving licence numbers
• Login credentials
• Social media, gaming, or messaging usernames
• CV, LinkedIn, or employer details
• Cryptocurrency wallet addresses

Coarse demographics — an age band, a region, a partial postal code — are usually what a study actually needs, and reduces identifying detail where possible. Prefer them where they will do.

Portal participants create an account with us for finding studies and receiving payment. We do not share that account identity with researchers. If you recruit through the portal, do not ask them for direct identifiers listed above unless your ethics approval covers it, your consent form discloses it, and you have agreed the approach with us first.

Studies you share by your own link, with participants you recruited yourself, are not covered by this restriction. That relationship is between you and them.

Whatever the recruitment route, do not attempt to work out who a participant is from their responses when you were not given identifying information for that purpose, and do not link records across studies to build a profile of someone. In some jurisdictions that is a criminal offence, and it is a breach of these terms everywhere.

We do not accept protected health information under HIPAA and will not sign a Business Associate Agreement. Studies collecting health, biometric, genetic, racial, political, religious or sexual-orientation data need ethics approval covering that specific processing, and a lawful basis under GDPR Article 9 where EU participants are involved.

For the data your study collects, you are the data controller and we are your processor. The consent form is yours to write and to honour, the retention period is yours to set, and a participant asking for their responses to be deleted is asking you, not us. Your consent form should name a contact who can act on that.

We give you the tools: per-study retention windows, a per-participant consent record showing the exact wording each person agreed to, and permanent deletion of selected runs from the Data tab.

Breaching this policy may lead to a study being unpublished and action on your account. Where a breach has put participants at risk, we may also need to notify them and the relevant supervisory authority.