Purpose of this Notice
This Notice explains how the ELEVATE research project, led by the University of Leeds, in collaboration with the University of Oxford, University of Brighton, Technical University of Dortmund and Technical University of Eindhoven, will collect, manage and use your personal data during and after your participation; what individual rights are afforded under the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) and who to contact with any queries or concerns.
This project is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and its full title is “Innovative light ELEctric Vehicles for Active and digital TravEl (ELEVATE): reducing mobility-related energy demand and carbon emissions”, grant reference UKRI EP/S030700/1.
The University of Leeds is acting as the data controller, and GDPR compliance is covered by formal agreements between Leeds and the other Universities.
This research has been approved by Business, Environment and Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee, reference AREA 2023-0477. They can be contacted at researchethics@leeds.ac.uk.
For more information about the University of Leeds’s research ethics approval process, see here.
Why do we process personal data?
The ELEVATE research project is scientific research which is being undertaken in the public interest. It uses “the performance of a task carried out in the public interest” as our lawful basis for processing personal data, and “archiving in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes, or statistical purposes” as our additional lawful basis for processing special category personal data (that which reveals racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs and data concerning health or sexual orientation).
The purpose of the ELEVATE research project is set out here. In brief, the project aim is to understand the potential of existing and new forms of e-micromobility, including identifying the people, places and circumstances where they will be most useful, in order to reduce energy demand and carbon emissions while improving people’s health and mobility.
Research activities include (but are not limited to) surveys, interviews, focus groups, and the collection of car mileage, physical activity, health and bike movement data, mostly as part of real-world trials, which involve lending micromobility vehicles, such as e-cargo bikes, to people interested in trialling them.
How do we follow data protection principles?
- We have a lawful basis for processing personal and special category data.
- Data will be used fairly and transparently
- We will only collect and use personal data for our research
- We will only collect the minimum amount of personal data which we need for our purposes.
- We will take steps to ensure that the personal data we hold is accurate.
- We will keep your personal data in an identifiable format for the minimum time required.
- We will take steps to ensure that your data is held securely.
- We will keep a record of our processing activities.
What do we do with your data?
In most cases, your personal data will only be used by members of the ELEVATE research project (and any subcontractors that they use) for the purposes of the ELEVATE project or, where you have given explicit permission, for follow-on work that develops from that project.
In a few situations, we may need to share your personal data with third party organisations to enable our trials to operate. This will only be done if you give explicit consent that we can do so. For example, to lend you an e-cargo bike, we may need to share your contact details with a bike shop and/or cycle training organisation.
The research work includes working with third party organisations like bike shops and hire companies. It is possible that they may be interested in offering research participants some opportunities, such as equipment discounts or loans. If this occurs, we will only send you information about these if you explicitly express an interest in receiving offers, and we will only pass on your details to them to enable them to directly contact you for these purposes, if you have indicated that you would like to receive offers.
Survey response, interview or focus group data (with any personally identifiable data stripped out, but socio-demographics preserved), may be stored and archived, at https://archive.researchdata.leeds.ac.uk/ and using the UK Data Service ReShare site, https://reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/ as required by our funders, the EPSRC.
Photographs or videos that you are happy to share with the research team for internal and/or external purposes cannot be anonymised, so we will get your explicit consent for their use.
Your rights as a data subject
Because we use personal data to support scientific research in the public interest, individuals participating in research do not have the same rights regarding their personal data as they would in other situations. This means that the following rights are limited for individuals who participate, or have participated in, a research project:
- The right to access the data we hold about you.
- The right to rectify the data we hold about you.
- The right to have the data we hold about you erased.
- The right to restrict how we process your data.
- The right to data portability.
- The right to object to us processing the data we hold about you.
In terms of data deletion, you can ask for your personally identifiable data to be deleted at any time. After four weeks, your anonymised information may have been combined with responses from others, so cannot be extracted after that time. Further information for participants is available on request (or will be additionally supplied for some activities).
If you have any questions about your rights, please contact the Data Protection Officer (whose details are given below).
Data security
All ELEVATE research partners, led by the University of Leeds, have put in place robust security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where legally required to do so.
Retention periods
We will only retain your identifiable personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for. After that time, we may retain your data in anonymised or pseudonymised format, for use by other researchers.
This project ends on 31st May 2025, and any personally identifiable data will be removed before this time, unless you have explicitly authorised its retention for future research (or other) purposes.
Communication, concerns and contact details
If you have any questions about data usage, in the first instance, please contact Noel Cass, email: N.F.Cass@leeds.ac.uk, tel: 0113-343-7051.
If you have complaints or concerns about the research, please contact the Director of Research at the Institute for Transport Studies, Professor Ronghui Liu, R.Liu@its.leeds.ac.uk, tel: 0113 343 5338.
You can also contact Leeds University Data Protection Officer (Alice Temple: A.C.Temple@leeds.ac.uk).
The postal address for data protection issues is Secretariat, Room 11.57 Worsley Building, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT.
The telephone number is +44 (0)113 343 7641.
The data controller registration number provided by the Information Commissioner’s Office is Z553814X.
Please see the Information Commissioner’s website for further information on the law. You have a right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) about the way in which we process your personal data. Please see the ICO’s website.
This notice was created for the ELEVATE project on 10th March 2023, and revised on the 19th April 2023.