Why have I been invited to take part?
We are asking you to participate because you are a developer/designer and have some previous experience with Unity 3D, and that is the profile we are interested in.
On what basis will you process my data?
Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the University has to identify a legal basis for processing personal data and, where appropriate, an additional condition for processing special category data.
Personal data is defined as data from which someone could be identified. For example, in this study I will NOT be collecting your name or address. Special category data is personal data which the GDPR says is more sensitive, and so needs more protection. In this study, I will NOT be collecting any special category data.
In line with our charter which states that we advance learning and knowledge by teaching and research, the University processes personal data for research purposes under Article 6 (1) (e) of the GDPR:
Processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest
Special category data is processed under Article 9 (2) (j):
Processing is necessary for archiving purposes in the public interest, or scientific and historical research purposes or statistical purposes
Research will only be undertaken where ethical approval has been obtained, where there is a clear public interest and where appropriate safeguards have been put in place to protect data.
In line with ethical expectations and in order to comply with common law duty of confidentiality, we will seek your consent to participate where appropriate. This consent will not, however, be our legal basis for processing your data under the GDPR.
How will you use my data?
Your name is not collected throughout any part of the study. You will be give an unique anonymous ID that will be used your email or Discord username.
Imagery with identifiable faces will not be publicly shared beyond the investigator team. Exemplary imagery may be used in academic publications to demonstrate particular issues identified by you. On this imagery, any faces or other identifiable characteristics of the person will be blacked out. Raw, non-anonymised imagery will be deleted after data analysis and publication have been concluded.
Voice recordings will be transcribed and then deleted. Any names and other information potentially identifying a person (such as your email or your Discord username) will be replaced by the ID or other anonymising aliases.
Now, in order to analyse all your anonymised data, we will follow a qualitative procedure called "Thematic Analysis". In thematic analysis, we will generate a number of tags for your data describing as best as possible what participants are doing. After we have number of tags meaningful enough, we will be able to converge several of them into bigger "themes", hence its name. You can check more about thematic analysis in wikipedia.
Will you share my data with 3rd parties?
We won't directly share your data with 3rd parties, but bear in mind that we are using Discord as the platform for online communication and that is a 3rd party. The data we anonymise and analyse will be accessible to the project team at York, Goldsmiths and University of the Arts London. However, any information that is shared in the Discord server is stored in Discord data centers. Discord is GDPR compliant and you can request full deletion of your data in different ways. See Discord Request copy of data and Discord Data Package.
We will only collect data from Discord, but we won't share any data from an external source to Discord. That is, collection is one way (from Discord to us). We might use other GDPR online services, and the same rule applies, we will only use these services to collect data and never to share.
Anonymised data may be reused by the research team for secondary research purposes such as writing scientific papers or giving scientific presentations, but never shared with any third parties. All data will be stored in secured servers managed by the University of York.
How will you keep my data secure?
The University will put in place appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data and/or special category data. For the purposes of this project we will make sure that your data will be anonymised as soon as possible and non-anonymised data deleted as soon as possible. Only the researchers on this study will see non-anonymised information about you. No reports or publications will use information that can identify you in any way or any individual as being of this project. These are only linked and identified by a unique number, not your name, email, Discord username or any other information that could identify you. The digital files will be stored on a secure computer and backed up on a secure server.
Information will be treated confidentiality and shared on a need-to-know basis only within the researcher team. The University of York is committed to the principle of data protection by design and default and will collect the minimum amount of data necessary for the project. In addition, we will anonymise or pseudonymise data wherever possible.
The University of York cloud storage solution is provided by Google which means that data can be located at any of Google’s globally spread data centres. The University has data protection complaint arrangements in place with this provider. For further information see, https://www.york.ac.uk/it-services/google/policy/privacy/.
Will I be identified in any research outputs?
No, data will be anonymised and it won’t be possible to identify you from any other participant.
Nevertheless, bear in mind that if you choose to post or share any videos or imagery from your own work on publicly available services like Youtube, you might become publicly identifiable even if we anonymise everything from your data.
How long will you keep my data?
Data will be retained in line with legal requirements or where there is a business need. Retention are determined in line with the University’s Records Retention Schedule. The data collected from this study will be securely protected in the University’s cloud storage for up to 5 years. Any local copies will be deleted once analysis is completed.
What rights do I have in relation to my data?
Under the GDPR, you have a general right of access to your data, a right to rectification, erasure, restriction, objection or portability. You also have a right to withdrawal. Please note, not all rights apply where data is processed purely for research purposes. For further information see, https://www.york.ac.uk/records-management/generaldataprotectionregulation/individualsrights/.
If you want us to delete or perform any changes to your data, please contact the lead researcher at carlos.gonzalezdiaz@york.ac.uk in the first instance. If you don’t receive an answer in less than a month, please contact any of the additional researchers at sebastian.deterding@york.ac.uk, m.gillies@gold.ac.uk, or phoenix.perry@arts.ac.uk. You can as well let us know verbally through a video call, or texting us directly in the online platform.