On your phone, and under your control
This app records only what your study lists, keeps it encrypted on your phone, and starts only after you agree.
Download AppParticeps is Latin for one who takes part in something. What the app records is written to your phone and encrypted there, you see every source your study switched on before you agree, and nothing is collected until you press Start.
The name is not a promise that the study is yours to set. What a study may collect, and how long it runs, are fixed in the signed study file your research team gives you: you can decline the study, or leave it, but you cannot rewrite it. Inside a study you can hold back the sources it marks optional, by not granting the access they ask for; a source it marks required stops the study instead. Nothing that has already left your phone can be taken back.
This page is not your consent document. Where they differ, your consent document and your research team’s answers come first.
手機使用與日常活動研究
Research team: 黃貞穎老師團隊
For invited participants using their everyday Android 14 or later phone.
Each time you set up or reinstall the app, download study.partcfg again from this page. Open Particeps, choose “Choose a study file”, and select the file you just downloaded, not an older saved copy. Reinstalling the app alone does not update an imported study.
Nothing is collected until you press Start
Importing a study file collects nothing. Consent is the third of five steps.
who is asking, why, how long
every source this study switched on
their consent text, the signature, and whether it sends
the Android access it needs
collection begins here
You can leave at any step.
The app follows your phone’s language. The globe at its top right changes it.
Your study lists the data it may collect.
Before you agree, the app lists the ones your study switched on — in the app’s own words, not the research team’s.
Particeps app activity
When Particeps’ own screens open and close
Motion
Movement measured by the phone’s motion sensor
Battery state
Battery percentage, charging source, and power-save state
Time context
Time zone, UTC offset, daylight-saving state, and clock changes
Rotation
Raw rotation measured by the phone; no activity is inferred
Ambient light
Raw surrounding light level; it does not record images or environmental content
Proximity
The phone’s raw near or distance sensor reading; it is not a presence claim
Screen power and lock state
Display power, interactive state, and whether the lock screen is showing
Observed throughput
Device-wide transfer counter changes and timing; no active speed test
Connection type
Whether you are on Wi-Fi or mobile data, and whether it is metered
VPN connection state
Whether Android reports a VPN connection; no provider or traffic content
Data volume
Total bytes this phone sends and receives
App and screen use
Which apps open and close, and when the screen turns on
Location
The phone’s location
Keyboard touch
How you touch the keys — position, timing, pressure — inside the research keyboard only
Read the participant guide for the full category descriptions and your controls.
Where it goes
Two kinds of study. Your consent screen says which one yours is.
This study does not send data automatically
What it collects stays on this phone until you export it yourself.
This study sends data automatically
Every value in this card is an example. Yours are on your consent screen.
- Sends to
- study.example.org
- How often
- About every 6 hours
- Network
- Wi-Fi only
The encrypted content includes a randomly generated installation code so the research team can tell participants apart after decrypting it. It contains no name and no account.
Automatic sending is part of the study and cannot be switched off on its own. Pausing or withdrawing stops new collection, but data already collected and not yet sent can still be sent to the research team.
The receiving server sees when a delivery arrived and how large it was, plus bundle, configuration, digest, and claimed range metadata. It cannot see your installation code or collected content.
What leaves is sealed to a key only the research team holds. The network it crosses cannot open it.
You can export a copy yourself, as often as you like, in either kind of study.
Stop and ask if…
- the fingerprint does not match, or you were never given one
- the study’s contents differ from what you were told
- it asks for more than you expected
- the app did not come from the source your team gave you
- you see Load demo study — a development build, whose keys are public
- anything asks for a password, or to turn off an Android security setting
Advancing research while keeping data safe.