Participate

Become part of the Living Lab Lokstadt and support the development of your neighbourhood.

With our SWICE app, you can conveniently take part in surveys and campaigns and take a close look at your lifestyle and mobility behaviour. You will receive exciting feedback on the CO₂ emissions of the means of transport you use as well as tips and tricks tailored to your lifestyle regarding sustainability in Lokstadt. You can find information about the planned projects here.

The SWICE app meets the highest data protection and privacy standards and is very economical in terms of battery consumption.

You can download the SWICE app here:

Have you downloaded the SWICE app?

SUPER!

Here you will find brief instructions for the next steps.

First step: Consent agreement and data protection

First, you will receive a detailed privacy policy, which you must accept in order to use the app. However, you can still decide in further steps within the app whether or not you want to take part in all the surveys and campaigns.

Second step: Create a pseudonym

Next, create your pseudonym according to the instructions on the app (e.g. 4P1T2M). This is your personal identification. This means you are registered anonymously with us. This way, no one can trace the data back to you

Third step: Select Lokstadt

Now select the Living Lab Lokstadt so that you only receive the surveys and information relating to Lokstadt.

Fourth step: Activate notifications

To make sure you don’t miss anything, we recommend that you activate the notifications. We endeavor to send you only the most necessary notifications. For example, you will receive a message when a new survey is posted.

Fifth step: Access to motion & fitness data

If you have an iPhone, you will now be asked whether you allow the app to access your motion & fitness data. Android users can give their consent in the next step. This data is required for participation in the mobility campaign so that your movement (means of transportation, distance covered) can be recorded and displayed for you in the app. This is done completely anonymously. The data processing takes place on your cell phone and is then stored anonymously by us. This means that we do not know who and where you are. Data protection is explained in detail in the declaration of consent (below). In order to participate in the first campaign, the mobility campaign, you must allow access to your movement and fitness data. Of course, you can also take part in the study if you do not allow access. In this case, you can only participate in campaigns that do not require the collection of movement and fitness data. You can also find more information on data protection below.

Sixth step: Activate mobility tracking

Last but not least, we ask you to activate mobility tracking. You will see the call to do so in the red bar in the app.

iPhone: Click on “Activate mobility tracking”. First confirm “Allow when using the app”. Another field will then appear. There you must allow the location to be used even when not using the app. To do this, click on “Change to “Always allow””.

Android: Click on “Activate mobility tracking”. Then check the boxes for activity tracking, location and background location.

This is how your mobility chronicle can be created. The data collected will be processed on your device and only passed on to the research team in anonymized form. This data will not be passed on to third parties. Granting permission to activate mobility tracking is necessary for participation in the mobility campaign so that your mobility (means of transportation, distance travelled) can be recorded and displayed for you in the app. Of course, you can also take part in the study if you have not activated mobility tracking. In this case, you can only participate in campaigns that do not require mobility data to be recorded.

Seventh and final step: Registration for the “Project start and survey” project

In the app, you must register for the “Project start and survey” project in order to take part in the lifestyle surveys and, if applicable, to receive your mobility chronicle.

Explanation of app functions

Campaigns and surveys

All campaigns and surveys that are active in Lokstadt are displayed under “Projects”. Click on an active project to access the corresponding surveys and receive notifications about changes in the project.

Mobility recording

If you have activated mobility tracking, your mobility behaviour will be recorded in the SWICE app. You can correct incorrectly identified means of transport by scrolling down to ‘Mobility details’ and tapping on the incorrectly identified means of transport (three dots on the right) and changing it to the correct one. You can specify your most frequently used means of transportation in the app settings (e.g. that you normally use an electric or hybrid car).

The app recognizes your routes and means of transport automatically, but it can happen that individual routes are not recognized at all. For technical reasons, these errors cannot be completely eliminated. However, the errors are in the single-digit percentage range.

The app with CO₂ visualization (left) and without visualization (right).

Don't want to download the app?

It is also possible to participate in the study without installing the app, however, participation in certain campaigns based on the app (e.g. visualization of your mobility behaviour) is then not possible.

If you don’t want to download the app, you can also find the lifestyle survey here: Lifestyle survey without app

If you would like to complete the survey on paper, you can collect the questionnaire from the Gesewo office (Emil-Krebs-Gasse 10) and return it there.

Information on data protection:

Your data is only stored locally on your cell phone. This means that the data collected is processed and anonymized directly on your cell phone. Only then is it sent to the research team’s servers. The data is stored in a secure database. The SWICE app and the mobility tracking function were developed specifically for this project and meet far higher data protection and privacy standards than other available mobility tracking apps. In addition, the SWICE app meets higher data protection requirements than required by law in Switzerland and the EU. The app has also been reviewed and approved by an ethics committee. You can request for your data to be deleted at any time.

We do NOT receive any information about:

your current or past whereabouts
your exact place of residence
your exact GPS data

We receive information about:

Distances covered by anonymous identification codes
Means of transportation of anonymous identification codes
Start and end time of the movement of anonymous identification codes
Approximate start and end point in a field of approx. 1 km² without ID
Movement points without identification codes

Detailed consent agreement (also in the app)

Declaration of consent

By participating in the surveys and campaigns to promote sustainable behaviour and well-being as part of the study L⁵: Living Lab Lokstadt – Langfristig Lebenswert as part of the SWICE project, you agree to participate in a scientific study. Please read this form carefully before giving your consent.

Target:

Recording the lifestyles of Lokstadt residents and investigating the impact of various campaigns and projects on the environmentally relevant behavior and well-being of Lokstadt residents.

Procedure:

During the study, you will be asked to contribute to research into solutions that enable more sustainable behaviour by doing the following:

Install an application on your phone to receive updates and questionnaires about the study in an anonymous way.
If you want to take part in the mobility campaign: Allow the application to collect sensor data about your mobility and physical activity behaviour.
Participation in surveys on your behaviour, lifestyle and attitudes with regard to sustainability
Participation in small projects related to environmentally relevant behaviour and well-being.

Confidentiality:

All the data collected with the surveys (behavioural patterns, lifestyle, beliefs, demographic data) will be coded so that your anonymity is preserved in any analysis, research publication, and presentations that result from this work. This collected data will not have any record of your name, identity, or information allowing to discover your identity.
If you have granted authorization for the collection of movement and location data or have activated it: All raw data from smartphone sensors (e.g. GPS, accelerometer) are processed directly in the app and are not accessible to third parties. The information resulting from this processing (e.g. means of transport used, number of steps per day) is also coded to protect your anonymity. For example, when saving the start and end points of your movements, the accuracy is reduced sufficiently (e.g. grid cells of around 1 km²) to prevent identification.
If you have granted the permission for recording movement and location data and have activated it, respectively: Location data during your movements can be regularly saved in a secured online database. Those data points are not associated to your person or your pseudonym, nor linked to one another. These coordinates are anonymized spatially (with grids with approximately 100 m² cells), and temporally (time ranges of 3 hours and no date). Additionally, points around the initial and final areas of these movements are not saved.
Only the researchers mentioned in this consent form and the creators of specific projects will have access to the collected data. Furthermore, the recorded data in its original (anonymized) form will not be shared with anyone (including project collaborators, employers, industrial partners, etc.) at any point in time.
After a period of one year, a transformed, derived version of the data (again without any identity information), might be shared with the Research Community upon request, to analyze behavior change with respect to sustainability-related matters. This version of the data will be different from the originally collected data as it will contain derived and accumulated features computed from the original data, and WILL NOT contain your identity information. This sharing will only be concluded conditionally, after the applicant has agreed to various conditions prioritizing data-usage ethics, and non-redistribution.

Nature of collected data:

Data related to your behaviour, lifestyle, beliefs, and attitude towards sustainability-related matters is stored in a secured online database, accessible only to the researchers designing the study. This participation and data collection is based on your voluntary contribution.

Risks:

There are no anticipated risks associated with the participation to the campaigns and surveys of this project.

Time required:

The forecasted overall study duration is 6 years. From June 2022 to December 2028. Participants can start and stop their participation at any time during this period.

Participation and withdrawal:

Participation in this study is completely voluntary. You can end your participation at any time without giving reasons and without penalty- either via the interface at swice.space/delete_data or by e-mail to the concerned researchers.

Ethics approval:

The scope and methods of the studies conducted with the SWICE app were approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Fribourg, Switzerland (Ref. No.: 2023-854 R1).

Jurisdiction and applicable rights:

This consent agreement is subject to Swiss law. The place of jurisdiction is Fribourg, Switzerland.

Contact:

If you have further questions about the study, procedure, or the findings, please contact Dr. Bernadette Sütterlin (bernadette.suetterlin@zhaw.ch) or Evelyn Lobsiger-Kägi (evelyn.lobsiger-kaegi@zhaw.ch) of the ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences. If you have further questions about the SWICE App, please contact Dr. Moreno Colombo (moreno.colombo@unifr.ch), Dr. Julien Nembrini (julien.nembrini@unifr.ch), or Marion Schönenweid (marion.schoenenweid@unifr.ch) of the Human-IST Research Institute, Université de Fribourg, Suisse.

Consent:

The purpose and the nature of this research have been sufficiently explained above and I agree to participate in this study. Additionally, I give my permission to record my answers to the surveys and the data collected as part of campaigns in which I choose to participate. I understand that I am free to withdraw at any time without incurring any penalty. Finally, I also understand that if I have any questions or concerns regarding this project, I can contact the above-mentioned researchers.