Privacy policy

Last updated 18 September 2026

This policy explains what personal data the Agora News Study collects, why it is collected, who handles it, and what you can ask us to do with it. If anything here is unclear, contact privacy@agoranewsstudy.org.

Who is responsible

The data controllers are the two researchers running the study: Rafael Jiménez-Durán (Bocconi University, Via Sarfatti 25, 20136 Milan, Italy) and Karthik Srinivasan (University of Michigan, United States). Only these two have access to data that has not been anonymized. The study is conducted under the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679; the Data Protection Officer at Bocconi University can be reached at DPO@unibocconi.it.

What we collect

Account and enrollment

• Your Prolific ID, used to pay you and to invite you to the closing survey. It is held in a separate record from your study data and can be removed; see Withdrawal and deletion.
• A single-use enrollment code.
• An assigned pseudonymous display name.
• Your group assignment and the version of the app used by that group.

Survey answers

• Baseline and closing survey responses, including demographics, political affiliation, political attitudes, and beliefs.
• Responses to incentivized valuation questions.

Activity in the app

• Posts and replies.
• Posts you like. Other members can see how many likes a post has, but not who gave them.
• In some versions of the app, amounts sent to or received from other members, and your balance.
• Members you block, posts you report, and moderation outcomes.
• Which articles you open, when you open and close them, and time spent reading.
• Device identifiers.
• Technical records of how the app performed for you: when an article image fails to load, and whether a notification we sent was delivered and whether you opened it.

The app can send you a notification when new articles are posted to your group. To deliver it we store a notification token issued by your device's operating system, and your device's time zone so notifications arrive at a reasonable hour. You can turn notifications off in the app's settings or in your device settings; nothing else in the study changes.

We do not collect your name, address, phone contacts, precise location, or advertising identifiers through the app. The app does not track you across other apps or websites.

Automated checks on submitted content

Posts and replies are checked automatically before they appear. Submitted text is sent to OpenAI for content classification, and a pattern-matching check blocks contact details such as email addresses and phone numbers. Flagged content may be reviewed by a member of the research team.

If a check blocks a post, we keep a record of the attempt so the checks can be audited, including the text you submitted. Where the block was triggered by contact details, those details are replaced with a label such as [EMAIL] before the text is stored and the originals are not kept. Blocked posts are never shown to other members.

Legal basis

We process your data on the basis of your consent (Article 6(1)(a) GDPR), which you give before taking part. Political opinions receive special protection under Article 9 GDPR, and this study deliberately collects political affiliation, political attitudes, and political speech; we process these on the basis of your explicit consent (Article 9(2)(a)), for scientific research purposes with the safeguards required by Article 89(1), including pseudonymization and restricted access.

You can withdraw consent at any time. Withdrawal does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before it, and does not affect payment for parts of the study you have completed.

Who else handles study data

Our hosting provider keeps technical request logs, which include your IP address and the type of device or browser making the request. These logs exist to run and secure the service. We do not use them for research, and they are not linked to your study records.

We do not sell participant data or share it with advertisers.

International transfers

Several providers above process data in the United States, and one of the two researchers is based there. Transfers to the United States rely on the EU–US Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified under it, and on the European Commission's standard contractual clauses otherwise; transfers to the United Kingdom rely on the Commission's adequacy decision. You can ask us for a copy of the safeguards in place.

Withdrawal and deletion

You can stop at any time without giving a reason. Payment for parts you have already completed is not affected.

You can delete your account from inside the app. Your login is disabled immediately and cannot be restored, and any outstanding payment is made to your Prolific account.

Your survey answers, posts, and app activity remain in the dataset under your pseudonym, because the results could not be verified without them. Posts stay visible to your group under that pseudonym until the group ends.

The link between study records and Prolific IDs is held separately from the research data, is accessible only to the research team, and is destroyed within one year of the study's conclusion, at which point all data are fully anonymized. This applies to everyone, whether or not they delete their account.

If you no longer have the app installed, you can request deletion at agoranewsstudy.org/delete-account.

Your rights

While your data remains identifiable, you have the rights set out in Articles 15 to 18 GDPR: to access your data, to correct it, to have it erased, and to restrict its processing. Write to privacy@agoranewsstudy.org; we reply within 30 days. When data are processed for research these rights are not absolute: under Article 17(3)(d), erasure does not apply where it would make the research objectives impossible or seriously impair them, which is why deletion works as described above. Once records have been anonymized we can no longer find yours.

You may also complain to the Italian supervisory authority, the Garante per la protezione dei dati personali (garanteprivacy.it), or to the authority where you live.

Security

Study data is protected using technical and organizational safeguards. Access is limited to authorized members of the research team. Participants are identified to one another by pseudonym.

Age

The study is for adults aged 18 and over.

Contact

Privacy and data requests: privacy@agoranewsstudy.org