Within the scope of this study, great importance is attached to compliance with data protection regulations, the protection of privacy, and the confidentiality of the data. We strictly adhere to all applicable laws and regulations on data protection, including the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP). With these notes we inform you about the processing of your personal data and the rights to which you are entitled.

Investigator

Max Gaerth, maximilian.gaerth[at]emory.edu
Emory University Goizueta Business School

What data we collect

This study collects the following data:

Voice recordings. Your microphone audio is recorded as an audio file (.wav) for each recording round. Voice recordings are potentially identifiable and are therefore treated as pseudonymous personal data throughout.
Derived acoustic features. Voice recordings may be processed using automated tools (e.g. acoustic feature extraction, speech embeddings) to produce derived data such as pitch contours, rhythm, spectral features, or neural embeddings. Derived features are treated with the same level of protection as the raw recordings and may be made publicly available as part of a research data publication.
Survey responses. Your answers to all questionnaire items.
Technical metadata. Browser type, screen dimensions, and response timing.

Legal basis for processing

The legal basis for processing your personal data is your freely given, informed consent (GDPR Art. 6(1)(a)). You may withdraw this consent at any time (see below).

Third-party data processors

To operate this study, your data is processed by the following third-party services:

Amazon Web Services (AWS), eu-north-1 (Stockholm, Sweden). Voice recordings are temporarily stored on a private, access-restricted Amazon S3 bucket located in the EU. AWS processes this data under a data processing agreement.

Data retention and storage

Voice recordings will be transferred from Amazon S3 to a password-protected hard drive held at ETH Zurich within two weeks of data collection, after which they will be deleted from AWS. All study data — including recordings and survey responses — will be retained for as long as is necessary for the research and any resulting publications, in accordance with ETH Zurich's data retention policies.

Results of the analyses may be published at an aggregate level in an academic journal. Pseudonymised data (identified only by a random participant code, not by name or voice) may be shared with journal data editors as part of the peer-review process for a resulting publication. Derived acoustic features (e.g. embeddings, pitch contours, spectral features) may be released publicly as part of a research data publication or open dataset. Raw voice recordings will not be made publicly available.

Confidentiality and pseudonymisation

Your responses are linked only to a randomly assigned participant code, not to your name. Voice recordings are potentially identifiable and are therefore not considered fully anonymous. Access to the raw data is restricted to members of the research team and, where required for publication, to journal data editors under equivalent confidentiality obligations.

Withdrawal from participation or consent

Participation in this research project is voluntary. You have the right at any time to withdraw from the study without stating a reason. You also have the right to withdraw your consent, which will result in your data being deleted so that it can no longer be linked to you. To exercise this right, contact the investigator and provide your participant code: {{ participant.code }}

Use of recordings in machine learning research. Your voice recordings may be used to train a machine learning model as part of this research. If you wish to have your recordings excluded from this analysis, please contact hauke.roggenkamp[at]mtec.ethz.ch and provide your participant code: {{ participant.code }}

Your rights

Under applicable data protection law you have the right to:

Access a copy of your personal data;
Request rectification or deletion of your personal data;
Object to or request restriction of the processing of your personal data;
Lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority — in Switzerland the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC, www.edoeb.admin.ch), or the data protection authority of your EU member state.

To exercise any of these rights, contact the investigator by e-mail and provide your participant code: {{ participant.code }}

By agreeing to these terms you consent to the following statement:

"I am 18 years of age or older. I have read and understood this privacy policy. I consent to participate in this study and to the processing of my personal data — including voice recordings — as described above. I understand that my voice recordings are pseudonymous and potentially identifiable, and that they will be temporarily stored on Amazon AWS before being transferred to a secure hard drive at ETH Zurich. I understand that my recordings may be used to train a machine learning model, and that I may request their exclusion from this analysis at any time by contacting hauke.roggenkamp[at]mtec.ethz.ch. I understand that acoustic features derived from my recordings (e.g. embeddings, pitch, spectral features) may be made publicly available as part of a research data publication, while raw recordings will remain restricted. I understand that I will not have any financial benefits that result from the commercial development of this research."