Privacy Policy for Mindtrails Watch

Data Collection

After installation of the app, once you give the required permissions, the system (i.e., Mindtrails Watch) will collect the following data.

  • Acceleration
  • Ambient light
  • Battery power
  • Features of audio
  • Gravity
  • Heart rate
  • Location [currently, though we take permission to access the location, we are neither retrieving nor storing the location. However, in the near future version, we will retrieve and store this data if you give permission.]
  • Magnetometer
  • Photoplethysmography
  • Step count
  • Watch put off and put on time

Data Privacy, Safety and Ethics

  1. The system does not store the raw audio. Instead, it processes the audio inside the app and keeps only the features that it encrypts before storing it on a server. Moreover, it stores the features only as binary values which are not human readable. Besides, the raw audio file (which we temporarily keep inside the app just to extract features) is deleted as soon as the feature extraction is complete which can be completed within certain minutes.
  2. The files containing your data that will be kept inside the app temporarily (until you upload the data by connecting to the internet) can not be accessed by any other apps of the Watch.
  3. The system does not collect data continuously and also does not collect data at night (12 AM to 8 AM). We collect data once (for 1 minute) every 5 minutes only if you keep wearing the watch.
  4. The system will not collect any data if you put off the watch. You can put off the watch anytime you want (e.g., during any private conversation when you do not want to provide data).
  5. We will not collect data on the corresponding sensor if you do not give permission during installation or you revoke the permissions (e.g., microphone for audio) afterward. You can change the given permission anytime.
  6. Your data is going to be stored in secure storage that can be accessed by only the researchers (who are in the IRB) of our project.
  7. The system does not collect personally identifiable information such as name, phone number, email address, etc.

Data Protection

Your data is protected according to health industry best practices and law. This includes encrypting your data at all times, storing data that identifies you separately from data that does not identify you, only using secured servers in protected facilities, and requiring all researchers and developers with access to your data to routinely pass security training. All of our security practices are reviewed and audited by the University of Virginia (UVA) Information Technology Security.

Data Usage

Your data will never be sold. Your data may be used in three ways: 

  1. Internal research to improve the app
  2. Published research with summary findings that mostly combine data across participants (this will not identify you in any way)
  3. Sharing data that does not identify you with reputable institutions, such as the National Institute of Health. This last step is now required for many research grants to ensure the integrity of the data. Also, sharing data is becoming a common research practice with standard identification removal techniques applied to the data.

Data Deletion

To request data deletion, please email us (s2helab@gmail.com) and ask to have your data removed from our servers.