Smart Data Donation Service
At a glance
Secure infrastructure for acquiring, managing, and sharing donated data
Complete design capability to solve trust, usability, and motivation issues in data donation
Thought leadership regarding data donation as a new way to understand the world
Community-wide mentorship and upskilling regarding associated research methods and ways of working
About
Empowering individuals across the country to obtain their own digital footprints and share it safely with researchers.
Individuals in the UK have the right to obtain a machine-readable copy of the personal data that any corporation holds about them. The Smart Data Donation Service (SDDS) is the first piece of national research infrastructure built around this right.
SDDS will help citizens across the UK to obtain copies of their digital trace data; assist them in using it to understand their digital lives; and offer them the opportunity to enrich and donate their data for use in scientific research.
Initially focusing on social media and video game domains, SDDS aims to address the urgent need for evidence-based policy around online safety and digital wellbeing. It will facilitate research into diverse topics including mental health, media literacy, digital community, discriminatory behaviour, and disinformation.
Data focus
- Digital behavioural data from tens of thousands of individual donors
- Targeted sampling of youth and at-risk populations across digital platforms
- Combined digital trace data with self-reported experiences and perceptions
- Longitudinal datasets tracking individual changes in digital engagement patterns
What’s coming?
- Tiered access system offering different security levels for sensitive data
- Community engagement through hackathons and a “lab in residence” programme
- Digital wellbeing indicators for policy development and intervention assessment
- Personalised tools enabling individuals to visualise and understand their own data
Gambling insights from banking data
University of York researchers conducted an innovative pilot study where they invited active gamblers to share their banking data. Through this approach, the team successfully quantified how gambling problem risk escalates with increased gambling expenditure. The research also explored whether higher income levels served asa potential protective factor against gambling-related harm. This data-driven approach provided valuable insights into the relationship between income and gambling harms.
The team
Led by the University of York, with embedded partners from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and Ofcom. The team is headed by Dr David Zendle and Professor Florian Block.
Contact SDDS
The Smart Data Donation Service website is due to go live later in 2025. In the meantime, if you would like to speak to the team, please email them at contact@sdds.ac.uk.