The app supports Android 6.0 or higher or iPhones from model 6s with iOS version 13.4 or higher.

After you have downloaded the track4science app, you will receive detailed instructions on which settings need to be made. These are: 

Android: 

The ‘Recording active’ option must be activated in the app settings. 

In the smartphone settings: Make sure that the app is allowed to use your location. Settings > Apps > track4science App> Permissions > Location > Always allow. 

Make sure that you have not activated any energy-saving mode or battery optimisation for the app that could impair its function.  

iOS:

The ‘Recording active’ option must be activated in the app settings. 

In the smartphone settings: Make sure that the app is allowed to access your location: Settings > track4science App > Location Always. It is also necessary that the app is allowed to access your fitness log: Settings > track4science App > Exercise & Fitness: Set toggle to green. 

Don't worry, we don't collect your heart rate, activity levels or recent diet successes, but we do need permission to access your iPhone's CMMotionActivity data, which tells us about your current activity level. Since the iPhone 5s, CMMotionActivity data has been collected by Apple by analysing various smartphone sensors in the background and provides information on whether you are walking, running, travelling in a vehicle or in sleep mode. This helps us to control the app's automatic sleep/wake function and you benefit from low battery consumption and more precise results.

Android:

On Android, you can activate the location services directly from the app when you switch on the recording. 

iOS:

For iPhone, open ‘Settings’ > ‘Privacy’ > ‘Location Services’. Location services must be generally activated there and access to location services must always be permitted in the app. 

You have the option of deactivating the recording in the app settings. If you deactivate the location services in the settings of your smartphone or revoke access authorisation to the location services, tracking will also be switched off. If you switch the location services back on later and want to use the app again, you will have to reactivate the recording in the app manually.

We have developed the app in such a way that it saves your battery. By combining GPS, other sensors on your smartphone and clever algorithms, we minimise the frequency of location queries to keep battery consumption as low as possible. Tests by Motiontag, the provider of the SDK, show that the app consumes around 3% battery per hour in active tracking mode. In normal use, we assume that the app does not actively track more than 4 hours per day. As the battery life varies from device to device, we recommend that you charge your smartphone overnight.

Your data transfer is spared! The app sends the collected mobility data and routes to our servers for analysis, usually via WLAN, as soon as your phone is connected to it. This minimises your mobile data consumption (around 2 KB/day). If you don't often have Wi-Fi access, you can also activate data transfer via mobile data in the app settings. For typical use with mobile data transfer, we expect a consumption of around 2.5 MB per day. 

We take the protection of your data very seriously and treat it confidentially. All the information we collect is subject to the General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR). And to be on the safe side, we have an external data protection officer on hand to provide advice and support. 

Pseudonymised 

Recorded sensor data and the movement data derived from it are separated from your identification features (user data) and are assigned to a user via a pseudonym (UUID). This means that your movement patterns can no longer be assigned to you without additional information and are therefore considered pseudonymised within the meaning of the GDPR. By observing recurring locations, it is theoretically possible to draw conclusions about where you live and work. We therefore classify all data, including pseudonymised data, as requiring protection and treat it accordingly. 

ISO-certified 

After recording in the app, the data collected is transferred to an ISO-certified data centre based in Germany and stored in a database there. This ISO certification describes the highest international certification standard for information security management systems (ISO 27001). The data centre is also certified according to C5 of the BSI, ISAE 3000 (SOC 2) and ISAE 3402 and therefore meets the highest cybersecurity standards. 

Encrypted 

The data collected by the app is transmitted exclusively using cryptographically secured encryption methods. 

Opt-out 

Participants have the option of deleting their account and all associated pseudonymised personal data at any time. Simply send us an email to datenschutz@track4science.de with a request to delete the account. To do this, enter the email address you used to register when onboarding the app.

We ask for your e-mail address when you register. We need this address to be able to assign the data to a person. Within the app, we ask for your consent to contact you via this email address. We contact you for several important reasons:  

If you want to take part in a competition and are drawn as a winner, we need a way to inform you.  

We invite you to participate in surveys that are relevant to our research. We will also keep you informed about new research studies in which you may wish to participate. These contacts are purely to encourage interaction and engagement within our study and to ensure that you have every opportunity to participate.  

Finally, we need your e-mail address so that we can assign enquiries to a person. This ensures that we only communicate with study participants.

Your data will be handled carefully. The track4science research team will only have access to your personal data as part of their duties. This includes, for example, situations where we need to inform you of a win in one of our competitions. 

Researchers only have access to anonymised data. This ensures that no conclusions can be drawn about your person, while at the same time we gain valuable insights for research.

We have developed a process that makes it virtually impossible to attribute the data to your person. 

If we provide individual user profiles for research, including GPS coordinates and timestamps, to external parties, we will transfer all location-based information to a grid of 100m x 100m. If fewer than ten tracking profiles cross such a grid within a calendar day, we set the value to N/A (not available).  

This data can be made available to the research community in aggregated form (non-personal dimensions, e.g. cohorts, time, means of transport). 

User account information (e.g. name and e-mail addresses) is only disclosed to the outside world in the event of a legal obligation.

You have a free right to information about your data processed by us and a right to receive a copy. Please note that we may only provide you with this copy if the rights and freedoms of other persons are not affected. d. Deine Anfrage kannst du an uns oder an datenschutz@track4science.de richten.

Simply send us an email with a request to delete your account to datenschutz@track4science.de. Enter the email address you used to register when onboarding the app.