Using JATOS to save personal data independent from task data

SophieScharf

Hey everyone,

due to data-privacy concerns I am currently looking for a solution to save personal data (such as Prolific IDs etc.) independent of my task data in a way that the task data cannot be traced back to the personal data.

An idea that I had was to use different components for task and personal data and then to somehow shuffle the personal data and remove the timestamps within the component. But I am not sure whether this is actually possible and/or the best way to go?

So I would be very thankful for any thoughts/ideas/suggestions that you might have for this question.

Cheers and thank you,

Sophie

elisa

Hi Sophie,

It's a bit unclear to me what exactly you want to dissociate and at which point. You could in principle provide a 'General Multiple' link and have people complete the task without any link ever made to their IDs. But I suspect you do need the link between personal data and result data initially, in order to pay participants that completed the task truthfully?

different components for task and personal data and then to somehow shuffle the personal data and remove the timestamps within the component. But I am not sure whether this is actually possible and/or the best way to go?

I might be forgetting something, but I think this could work. JATOS won't let you shuffle the components but if you delete your data from JATOS just after downloading it, then you could shuffle it by hand on your computer and that's enough. Just keep in mind that if you include the Prolific ID in the query string (like we describe in the optional Step 2 in the docs https://www.jatos.org/Use-Prolific.html) , this will be automatically stored in your results database and deleting components wouldn't do the trick.

Best

Elisa