Participate

Participant Privacy

Below is the privacy policy for participating in/using the PEIR system. We present it here for informational purposes only. This policy will be presented to you as part of the PEIR user registration process.

Participating in PEIR means that you will create a record of where you go every day. This location information will be stored at CENS. We also collect information about you when you register for PEIR, such as your name, email address, and the type of car you drive (personal information). Keeping location and personal information about you is a big responsibility. CENS takes this responsibility very seriously.

When you register, you will read and accept a privacy statement and a user agreement for PEIR. Read them carefully to understand the risks. Below is a summary of risks and how CENS makes sure you can feel secure.

Risks of collecting location information

Collecting and sharing information about your location carries some risks, especially when it is linked to personal information about you such as your name. We want you to understand those risks. We also want you to understand what CENS does to make sure your data is secure and under your control.

By recording where you go every day, you are creating a record of your daily routine. If others can look at this record, they may:

Discover your location at any time;
Discover your daily routine;
Discover sensitive locations such as your home, place of work, or frequently visited establishments;
Discover your walking or driving speed and what streets you normally drive on;
Discover times of day when you are often away from home.

In addition, courts or other people could learn this information about you if your data is subpoenaed. To help you avoid these risks, we make sure that you can control who looks at your record. That way, you can control who knows about your daily routine.

Making sure you control your information.

During PEIR, your phone records your location and sends it to a secure database at CENS. If you keep your password secret, only you and authorized CENS staff can access your location information in our secure storage. This means that no one but you and CENS staff we trust can see anything about your location. CENS will take reasonable precautions to limit our staff’s access to your data.

You can also avoid creating a record of everywhere you go. You can turn off PEIR at any time: just turn off the Campaignr software on your phone, and PEIR will stop recording your location.

Sharing your data.

CENS will not give or sell your location data to anybody unless required to by law enforcement or under subpoena. We promise to do this so that you can stay in control of who sees your location information.

There are two ways to share PEIR information with people you trust. You may share your emissions and exposure data with your Facebook network if you feel comfortable doing so. You can then use Facebook’s privacy settings to control which of your Facebook friends can see your emissions and exposure. Using the Facebook feature does not share any information about where you’ve been. The Facebook feature only shares combined data about how much you contributed to emissions, and how much you were exposed. Neither Facebook nor your Facebook friends will be able to see your location information.

You may also share your trip journals (maps and information about where you’ve gone) with other PEIR users you trust, such as your family or close friends. If you select to share your trip journals with friends, they will be able to see your location information, but won’t be able to edit it or share it with anyone else. This way, you keep control over who knows your location information.

Deleting Your Data or Your Account.

You can also make the record of your location go away. You can get rid of this record in two ways:

You can delete any location information you wish at any time. For example, if you wish to delete a single trip taken in your car, you can select the trip in your trip journal and choose “delete.” This will permanently delete the trip you have selected. We will keep any location data that you don’t delete indefinitely on our secure servers.
You can deactivate your PEIR account. We will delete all of your data, including your location information and personal information such as name and email.

Remember, you can also turn off collection of your location at any time by turning off the phone or turning off the Campaignr software.

Other Uses of Your Location and Personal Information.

As we said, trusted CENS staff may have access to your location and personal information. We may use this information to keep testing our technologies. This might include building better ways to recognize activities (walking, riding a bus, driving). We may also use this information to evaluate how well PEIR works for its users.

Your location data may also be used in displays to promote our research. We will only create displays that keep your identity anonymous. We will therefore never use your name in displays without prior permission, and we will not identify your home or work address without permission. We may also share combined data from all of our users (again, without anyone’s names) with our funders.

CENS may also use your personal information (such as your name and email address) to improve PEIR. We might use this information to allow users to subscribe to an online or email newsletter; to allow users to express their opinions on various topics; to allow users to receive notification of and register for other CENS campaigns; and to introduce users to new features, areas or content of the site. CENS may use combined user information (e.g., 44% of users are male) to improve the design and content of PEIR. CENS also may use this information to analyze PEIR use.

Please note that CENS is not responsible for any use of information (including personal information) posted by users on the message boards, chat rooms, blogs, and other communication forums found on the site which are accessible by other users of the site.

Website privacy

Certain personal information about you can be collected when you visit any website. When you visit the public portion of the PEIR website, we collect the following information: the name of the domain you used to access the internet, the date and time of your visit, and the pages you visited. CENS may use this information for statistical purposes and to help make this site more useful to visitors.