Data Privacy Statement

The European Alliance against Depression takes your right for data protection serious and has a legal obligation to assure the security of your data. The privacy statement tells you what information is stored to which purpose if you use the iFightDepression Tool. Please note that this privacy statement only applies to the iFightDepression Tool website, not to any other website we mention or link to.

The iFightDepression Tool, to which this privacy statement relates, was developed with support of the European Union within the context of the PREDI-NU project (Sept. 2011 – Aug. 2014), represented by experienced researchers with a track record in mental health promotion and research. Since project end, the iFightDepression tool is administered by the European Alliance Against Depression (EAAD).

You may reach the EAAD via email (contact@eaad.net) or via regular mail to:

European Alliance Against Depression
Goerdelerring 9
D - 04109 Leipzig

The email address at which you receive your registration link will be collected, as well as your username if you choose one. These are used to regulate access to your account, and to identify you to your guide if you choose to share your data with your guide.

The tool stores mood ratings and saved worksheets, as well as a log of which pages you have worked with. During registration, we ask your gender and age. Furthermore, as the iFightDepression Tool is evaluated continuously, you will be asked twice to answer some questions:

• At first log-in
• After the 6th workshop OR 8 weeks (via a link that is provided to you by e-mail)

The questions relate to your current and previous mood and to iFightDepression itself (expectations about working with the tool and your experiences with it).

Some technical data is also stored, such as your password, the time of your most recent login and the identifier of the guide who created your account.

Use of the iFightDepression Tool requires the storage of the data you enter. E.g. we enable you to monitor your mood over time or to consecutively complete online worksheets. Furthermore, aiming at your best possible treatment, you can decide to share the information you enter with your guiding health professional for facilitating your communication. Those aspects are only possible if the above mentioned data is stored in the iFightDepression Tool database. This will be done along with the date and time of your program usages.

In addition, for evaluation purposes, your experience with the iFightDepression Tool is of interest for us. Among other things we would like to:

• Optimize the iFightDepression Tool in the future,
• Get an idea about completion and drop-out rates 
• Obtain an idea whether the tool works well to reduce depressive symptoms as reported by you,
• And find out how this relates to how you used the tool.

Additionally your mood rating and the worksheets will be analysed to answer scientific research questions about the program’s use.

None of this requires us to know your name or email address. Therefore this analysis is performed pseudonymously. We have designed the tool specifically to allow us to perform this analysis without learning your name or email address. Even if you use the “Feedback” form in the tool to tell us what you like or do not like about the tool, we are unable to tell which user gave the feedback.

The tool stores an email address for each user in order to send registration links and to make it easier for you to log in without remembering a username. You may use a throwaway email address for added privacy.

All data we collect are stored on a central secure server at the premises of an internet service provider in Germany (“Domainfactory”). All reasonable physical and technical measures will be taken to ensure the security of the data at all points.

The data will be analysed and evaluated with the aim of optimising the tool for future use and to gain further scientific insight about the use of online programs such as iFightDepression. For this purpose data possibly will be safely transferred between partner organisations and project partners engaged in evaluation tasks. All participating project centres are subject to data protection laws and instructed to manage and work the data in the highest sensitive manner possible.

Anonymised excerpts of information entered may be used for (scientific) publications about the iFightDepression Tool and / or in the process of disseminating information about it.

You can contribute to the safety of your data by storing your password safely or not storing it at all.

Pseudonymised data are accessible only to staff of the EAAD or scientists and partner organisations, which are instructed by the EAAD management.

EAAD will never:

• Use or reveal your personal data without your explicit permission, unless it is confronted with a legal obligation to do so.
• Use your personal data to send you unrequested informational e-mails (spam)
• Provide or sell your personal data to any third party (e.g. for promotional purposes)

Yes, you have the three rights accorded to you by the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation:

• You have a right to review all data we have stored about you.
• You have a right to correct any data we have stored about you that is incorrect.
• You have a right to have all data we have stored about you deleted.

If you wish to make use of these rights, please write an email to ifightdepression@eaad.net with the email subject 'Data Request - iFightDepression tool' and be prepared to give evidence of your identity, typically by writing from the email address you used to register.

If you are dissatisfied with our handling of your data, you have a right to complain to your data protection agency.