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. 2019 Jul;83(Suppl 1):210-235.
doi: 10.1093/poq/nfz007. Epub 2019 Jun 6.

Willingness to Participate in Passive Mobile Data Collection

Florian Keusch  1   2 , Bella Struminskaya  3 , Christopher Antoun  4 , Mick P Couper  5   6 , Frauke Kreuter  7
Affiliations

Willingness to Participate in Passive Mobile Data Collection

Florian Keusch et al. Public Opin Q. 2019 Jul.

Abstract

The rising penetration of smartphones now gives researchers the chance to collect data from smartphone users through passive mobile data collection via apps. Examples of passively collected data include geolocation, physical movements, online behavior and browser history, and app usage. However, to passively collect data from smartphones, participants need to agree to download a research app to their smartphone. This leads to concerns about nonconsent and nonparticipation. In the current study, we assess the circumstances under which smartphone users are willing to participate in passive mobile data collection. We surveyed 1,947 members of a German nonprobability online panel who own a smartphone using vignettes that described hypothetical studies where data are automatically collected by a research app on a participant's smartphone. The vignettes varied the levels of several dimensions of the hypothetical study, and respondents were asked to rate their willingness to participate in such a study. Willingness to participate in passive mobile data collection is strongly influenced by the incentive promised for study participation but also by other study characteristics (sponsor, duration of data collection period, option to switch off the app) as well as respondent characteristics (privacy and security concerns, smartphone experience).

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Example of a vignette.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Average marginal effects (points) with 95 percent confidence intervals (lines) from multilevel logistic regression predicting likelihood of willingness to participate in passive mobile data collection.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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