Who we are
driftoff is a research project. It is led by Dan Archer, a PhD candidate in Public Health at Te Herenga Waka | Victoria University.
You can read more about the ethics of this project here.
Your personal information
We collect personal information from you, including information about your:
- Identity such as your name, age, gender, and ethnicity,
- contact information such as your email address and phone number,
- how you interact with the driftoff app and website,
- feedback about your experience using the driftoff app,
- health information that you provide such as your subjective sleep and emotional wellbeing experierences.
We collect your personal information in order to:
- understand how people use this app,
- contribute data to the researcher’s PhD dissertation and academic publications.
Providing some information is optional. If you choose not to provide your contact or demographic information then you will be unable to access the app.
Cookies and linking usage
We use a persistent cookie containing a unique user ID to link your website usage to your app usage. This cookie allows us to integrate data across platforms for research purposes, helping us to better understand your usage behaviour between the app and the website. It does not collect any additional personal information beyond this identifier.
Storage of your data
We keep your information safe by storing it on encrypted servers and only allow members of the research team to access it.
Information about your identity and your health are collected via Qualtrics, a common survey platform. You can view their privacy policy here
Analytics and information about how you use the app are collected on a university hosted private server and are not shared with any third parties such as Google analytics.
Your identity and health information is kept separately to the data we collect about how you use the drifoff app and is linked only through your user ID.
Who we share your data with
Your information will never be disclosed to anyone outside of the research team. All attempts will be made to ensure that any information you provide is not identifiable in any research outputs or reports.
How long we retain your data
We keep your personal information until 31 December 2025 at which point we securely destroy it by permanently erasing it. All other information, including your anonymised health data and app usage data will be destroyed no later than 01 September 2030.
What rights you have over your data
You have the right to ask for a copy of any personal information we hold about you, and to ask for it to be corrected if you think it is wrong. You also have the right to have all of your data deleted and you must request this by 1 September 2025. If you’d like to ask for a copy of your information, or to have it corrected, please contact us here.
Questions, comments, and complaints
If you have a question or complaint you can contact the researcher or their supervisor. These contact details can be found on the ethics page.