Data Privacy

How will my information

be kept private and confidential?

For over a decade, Katherine Bright has conducted research with survivors of human trafficking, sexual violence, persons returning home from jail/prison, childhood abuse survivors and homeless teenagers and/or teens removed from their home. Her work is guided by extensive ethics training and years of hands-on experience working with sensitive data. The research team has documented our commitment to not viewing or searching for any videos/images that may exist as part of your sexual harm experience. We believe that would be a breach of your privacy and our values.

Research participation is confidential, so what you say cannot be connected to who you are. We will not ask you for your signature or to report your government name. Your responses will be assigned a unique ID, which will be stored separately from identifiable information. We will securely store the key code linking separated databases in a different, password-protected file which will be destroyed, along with your contact information (unless you provide explicit permission for it to stay on file) after data analysis is complete. No information that can easily identify you will appear in any professional presentation or publication and no one outside of the research team will see your individual responses. 

For the longer Virtual Interview: We will ask for your explicit consent to record the audio of your interview, using Zoom, or an audio device. Only the audio of your recording will be saved. We will not record or keep records of your screen image or face and you do not need to turn your camera on in order to participate. All audio recordings will be immediately saved, under a unique ID, to a separate, password protected, data storage service provided by the university and the audio will be deleted as soon as a transcription is complete. We will not ask you for identifying information as part of the recorded interview, but if you accidentally report something that could identify you (i.e. the town you live in), we will take that language out during the transcription process. The de-identified transcriptions will be stored under a unique ID and will be used for research purposes only. 

For the shorter Written Interview: We will use Qualtrics to collect and forward your responses to us, so will know your IP address. We will ask you to include contact information such as a phone number or an email so that we can send you the study link, compensation, and/or to follow up with you about any unclear or confusing responses once you submit (if you give us permission to do so). We will not ask for your name. Your IP address and contact information will be saved in a separate, password protected data storage service that will not be stored with your interview responses. Instead, your responses will be assigned a unique ID, so others will not know which responses are yours. We will securely store the key code linking your responses to your identifiable information in a separate password protected file which will be destroyed after data analysis is complete.  We will not ask you for identifying information as part of the interview, but if you accidentally report something that could identify you, we will take that language out before the data appears in any professional presentation or publication.