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Information for research participants

 Here, we want to inform you about some general regulations and your rights with respect to participation in scientific experiments. It is based on regulations by the EU commission as documented in the GDPR and general rulings of the ethics commission. (see here) These documents contain a lot of legalese and might appear intimidating, sorry for that. However, in the end, most of the stuff is simple and if you have any questions, just drop a line.

Please be aware that all studies involving the processing of personal data are subject to the following conditions:

Things to know before starting an experiment:

• Providing personal data by the participant (this is you) is a requirement to enter contract, that is participate in the study, if it is necessary to conduct the study. An example is in order to schedule participation hours we need your contact information. This means that the choice not to provide personal data that is essential to the purpose of the study, leads to automatic exclusion from the recruitment procedure.

• Participation is only possible after written or oral consent has been given by the research participant (that is you). This includes consent to the processing of personal data as described here.

• Specific information on the protection and the specific processing of personal data is given as part of the informed consent procedures employed by each of our studies.

General information on what happens with your data:

• You have the right to be informed about the purposes of the processing for which the personal data are intended. This includes the underlying legitimate interest pursued by the University of Osnabrück (representative: Prof. Dr. P. König for experiments that are performed by members of the NBP group), as well as the legal basis for the processing (GDPR) which is outlined here. The original documents can be accessed through the link on the top of this page. As interests might vary depending on the aim of the experiment, the exact purpose pursued by each study is included in detail in the informed consent procedure of the respective study. By reading the information and signing the consent sheet participants (that is you) agree to the processing of their personal data for the purposes stated in the information sheet.

• You have the right to be informed about the recipients or categories of recipients of the personal data. This means that we will never share your personal data with other researchers or third parties without stating a clear description of the people or institutions that receive access to your personal data in the informed consent procedure of the individual study. If applicable, we will clearly state the contact details and the exact purposes of all people and institutions involved that receive access to your personal data.

• You can request access and rectification or erasure of your personal data at any point in time, also after you completed your participation. You also have the right to restrict or to object the processing of your personal data at any point in time. Finally, you have the right for data portability, meaning that you can request your personal data from a study and/or restrict us from moving your data to another platform or service. Please note, when personal data has been deleted irreversibly or the experimental data have been completely anonymized, this right naturally expires as the personal data cannot be accessed anymore.

• Similarly, you can withdraw your consent at any time. Once you have withdrawn your consent to the processing, your data will be deleted irreversibly and not analyzed any further. Please note that retrospective withdraw of consent for the processing of personal data does not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal. Naturally, in cases where all personal data has already been deleted irreversibly or the experimental data have been completely anonymized, the right to withdraw consent does not apply anymore

• If applicable to the data recorded in a study, it is your right not to be provided with accurate and meaningful information about the existence and applicability of automated decision-making, including profiling. This means that for studies that involve automated processing or profiling, we will thoroughly explain the underlying logic as well as possible consequences that such processing might have for the research participants. For studies involving or allowing for aforementioned type of processing, all relevant information is included in the information and consent procedures. Eventually, none of our studies include decisions that are based solely on automated processing that could significantly affect, or cause real legal effects.

• If applicable, it is your right to receive accurate information on potential other purposes that the personal data might be used for prior to that further processing. This applies to all cases where we intend to further process your personal data for a different purpose than the purposes you were informed about when giving your consent to participation in the study. In this case we will inform you accurately about the new purpose(s) for further processing, including but not limited to all relevant information mentioned in art. 13 of the GDPR, as stated on this website. All this information will be included in new information and consent sheets and the data will only be processed further under the condition that the respective research participant provided written or oral consent for the new processing. Please note, that according of good scientific practice, a growing number of studies make the experimental data available to other researchers in anonymized form. These data may then be analyzed and processed by other researchers without requiring further consent by us or anybody else, or even specific information that such processing is taking place. That is, the above information procedures apply only to not anonymized data. Further, as these publicly available data are anonymized, they cannot be related to your identity.

After the experiment:

• Whenever personal data is solely required to establish contact with participants, for instance to arrange their participation in the study, it will be deleted irreversibly two weeks after participation. If the processing of personal data is essential to the aim of the experiment, research participants will be informed about the duration of the storage of the personal data as part of the informed consent procedure.

• Finally, you have right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority during or after the participation in one of our studies. For instance, if you are questioning whether the procedures of a study you participate in were lawful. While we recommend to first reach out to one of our internal data protection instances mentioned below, it is important that you are aware that you can always turn to a neutral control instance such as the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS; Link: https://edps.europa.eu/data-protection/our-role-supervisor/complaints_en)

In accordance with Article 13 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) issued by the European Commission, we inform our research participants about the following:

1. Contact data of the controller, determining the means of processing of personal data:
   Osnabrück University; representative: Prof. Dr. Peter König (pkoenig@uos.de)
2. Contact data of the Data Protection Officer (DPO) who can be contacted internally for questions regarding the use and processing of personal data:

Dipl.-Kfm. Björn Voitel, CISM, CRISC, CISSP-ISSAP, CSSLP, SSCP

Datenschutzbeauftragter / IT-Sicherheitsbeauftragter
Tel.: +49 541 969 7880 Fax: +49 541 969 17880
Raum 94/122
Stabsstelle Datenschutz & IT-Sicherheit
Nelson-Mandela-Straße 4
49076 Osnabrück
datenschutzbeauftragter@uni-osnabrueck.de

Official website (taken from):
https://www.uni-osnabrueck.de/universitaet/organisation/zentrale-verwaltung/datenschutz-und-it-sicherheit/