Privacy Policy

Your information

The ECHO (Examining Coercion, Harm and Healing in LGBTQIA+ Relationships) Project Team cares about your privacy, and takes the responsibility of protecting your information seriously. The following information describes how the Team uses and protects information collected through the ECHO Project study (“The Study) and its website www.echoproject-research.com (“The Website”).

By using the website, you acknowledge that you accept the practices and policies outlined in The ECHO Project Privacy Policy (the “Privacy Policy”). You consent that the Research Team will collect, use, and share your information as described in this Privacy Policy and the Study documents referenced herein and on the website.

What does this privacy policy cover?

This Privacy Policy covers the treatment of personally identifiable information ("Personal Information") that the Project Team gathers when you are accessing or using the Site. This privacy policy does not apply to the practices of companies or institutions that the Project Team does not own or control, or those which are not members of the Project Team.

Your use of the Site will allow you to provide the Project Team with Personal Information, which may include but is not limited to information about your identity, demographic information, your relationships and your health and wellbeing. If you choose to engage with the survey embedded on the website at the ‘Join the study’ page, the website will redirect to a survey hosted on Qualtrics to collect your personal information for the purposes of a research study being carried out at the Dublin City University (“DCU”) School of Psychology. The study is titled the ECHO Project: Examining Coercion, Harm and Healing in LGBTQIA+ relationships (the “Study”). If you choose to use the Website to provide the Project Team with Personal Information, you must first review and acknowledge the study information and informed consent form, which will be presented to you within the Website.

The Project Team does not knowingly collect or solicit Personal Information from anyone under the age of 18 or knowingly allow such persons to register for the Study. If you are under 18, you are not allowed to register for the Study. If the Project Team becomes aware Personal Information from a person under age 18 has been collected, this information will be immediately and permanently deleted. If you believe that the Project Team might have any information from or about a person under the age of 18, please contact the Project Lead, Dr Áine Travers at aine.travers@dcu.ie or +353 1 700 8548.

How does the Project Team collect information?

The Website will obtain information from you in two ways. The first relates to information that you manually enter into the website, for example to participate in the study or to register your interest in taking part. The second is information that the Website collects automatically about you. DCU is the data processor and the data controller for all information gathered. The gathering of each type of information is outlined in further detail below:

Information you manually enter into the website:

The Project Team receives and stores information you manually enter into the Website via Qualtrics, which hosts the study. This includes some Personal Information, such as your email address. We collect this information so that we can verify that you are eligible to participate in the study, so that we can contact you about the study, and so that we can send you your voucher to compensate you for your time. Your data will be pseudonymized for analysis, meaning that your email address will be kept in a secure password-protected folder, separately to your survey responses. Your Personal Information will be kept strictly private, with access restricted to the immediate Project Team. However, if something in your survey makes us concerned about your immediate safety or wellbeing (for example, if you disclose experiencing serious ongoing abuse or active suicidality) we may reach out to you with an option of receiving direct one-to-one support. In this situation, it is your decision whether you wish to engage with this. The risk of breaches to your data privacy in this project is considered to be low. However, if your data were to be compromised in any way we will inform you of that immediately. The results of the study will be published in research journals and presented at conferences, as well as integrated into a doctoral thesis. If you consent, we may also share your anonymised information with researchers from other universities for the purposes of conducting further analyses. No information that could identify you will be made public at any time. The Study will conclude in June 2029, at which point the data will be fully anonymised (i.e., all Personal Information will be permanently deleted). Any time before then, you can withdraw your information by contacting us, using the details provided on the ‘Contact Us’ page of this Website. After the data is anonymised, it won’t be possible to withdraw, as we will no longer be able to identify you. Data will be permanently destroyed five years after the culmination of the project. This will occur on May 1st, 2034.

Information collected automatically:

In addition to the Personal Information that you manually enter, the website automatically receives technical information relating to your usage of the Website such as your operating system, device, features used, content viewed and downloaded, the dates and times of your interactions with the Site and other information. The Project Team may use this information to understand, customize, and improve user experience with the website and the study.

Please note that confidentiality of information can only be protected within the limitations of the law - i.e., it is possible for data to be subject to subpoena, freedom of information claim or mandated reporting by some professions.

If you would like to discuss data protection with a person independent of the Project Team, you may contact the DCU Data Protection Officer, Mr. Martin Ward (data.protection@dcu.ie Ph.: 7005118 / 7008257)

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the topics addressed in this Privacy Policy, please contact the Project Lead, Dr Áine Travers at aine.travers@dcu.ie