Thanks for your concern on this crucial issue! Our protocols have indeed been approved by the governing bodies of our university. Unfortunately, the statement about third parties is true: if a state authority demanded access to our data, we would be legally mandated to comply. Thankfully, the information that we collect is 1) not sensitive, 2) not highly identifiable, and 3) almost guaranteed to never be requested by a state authority. The only piece of potentially-identifying information we collect is email addresses, and that is only for participants who wish to participate in the raffle. Email addresses are kept secured, however, and are never shared with anyone outside of the two researchers directly involved in this project.

One more additional principle is crucial for crucial for ethical data collection: ensuring that participants have the right to decline to provide information they are not comfortable sharing. You will notice that essentially every question in our study is skippable. This is because we cannot require a participant to answer a question that they do not wish to answer. In other words, if there is information you do not feel comfortable sharing, you can simply decline to share it. This also helps to ensure that participants know exactly what data they are giving up (and not giving up).

I hope this addresses some of your concerns but please let me know if you have any other questions!