Last updated: 15 October 2026 · Previous version (13 June 2024)
This policy explains what personal data the SMELLiT app collects, why, who receives it, how long we keep it and what your rights are. It applies to the SMELLiT app for Android and iPhone and to your contact with the study team. Please read it together with the Informed Consent Statement you approve in the app and our Terms and Conditions.
In short
- SMELLiT is a research study about everyday smell, run by the Weizmann Institute of Science with its d2smell research partners.
- You sign in with your phone number. Your research answers are filed under a random study code, kept apart from your phone number.
- With each questionnaire we collect your answers, a photo and the name of the place you are in. We do not store GPS coordinates, and the app never reads your location in the background.
- The app has no advertising and no analytics SDK, and we do not sell your data.
- Data without directly identifying information may be published for other scientists.
- You can quit the study at any time and ask us to delete your account.
1. Who we are
The SMELLiT study is run by the Weizmann Institute of Science, 234 Herzl Street, Rehovot 7610001, Israel (“Weizmann”), as part of the d2smell project, together with its research partners:
- KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Kungliga Tekniska högskolan), Brinellvägen 8, 114 28 Stockholm, Sweden;
- Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e.V. (MPG), Hahn-Meitner-Weg 1, 55128 Mainz, Germany;
- Karolinska Institutet (KI), Solnavägen 1, 171 77 Solna, Sweden.
Together (“we”, “us”) we decide why and how your personal data is processed, and we are joint controllers under the EU and UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Weizmann is your point of contact for all of us: smellita@weizmann.ac.il.
2. What we collect
When you sign up
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Your mobile phone number | To sign you in with an SMS code, to make sure each person takes part only once, and to prevent fraud |
| The country you are in | The app reads your location once and keeps only the country, to confirm that we are recruiting there |
| Your age and sex | Research data, and to check that you are old enough to take part |
| Your waking hours, free days, time zone and app language | Only to send your notifications at suitable times and to show the app in your language. They are not part of the research data |
| A recovery code | Lets you back into the study on a new phone. We store it only in a protected (hashed) form |
With each questionnaire
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Your answers: whether you smell something, how you rate it, the words you choose, your own description, whether you are indoors, in a vehicle or outdoors, the kind of place and how long you have been there | Research data |
| The time of the notification and of each answer | Research data |
| A photo you take in the app (required with every questionnaire) | Research data, and to check data quality |
| The name of the place you are in: your city or town and, where your phone provides it, the district or neighbourhood, with region and country. No GPS coordinates are stored | Research data |
If you choose to
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| The optional demographic survey: household, languages, where you grew up, education, work, commuting, income band, time outdoors, diet, smoking and vaping, activities, wellbeing, sleep, and questions about your sense of smell and health (for example smell loss after a viral illness, smell disorders or a blocked nose) | Research data. Some answers are health data, a special category of personal data. Most questions allow “Prefer not to say” |
| Payment details: an email address for a GoGift gift card | Only to pay you |
| Your answers to two optional feedback questions at the end of the study | To improve the study |
| Support messages: what you write, photos you attach, and a short technical note (phone type, system version, app language, study status and the screen you wrote from) | To help you. A photo from your gallery can carry the place where it was taken in its metadata |
Automatically
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Push-notification identifiers (Google Firebase and, on iPhone, Apple) | To deliver your notifications and support replies |
| Crash and error reports, sent through Sentry: app version, phone model, system version, the screens before the error, and an approximate location (city, region, country) that Sentry derives from your IP address. Reports carry your study code, never your phone number, and phone numbers, email addresses and locations are removed on your phone before a report is sent | To find and fix problems |
| Server records: the IP address and device of each connection, and at sign-up a hashed form of the IP address | Security and fraud prevention |
We do not collect your name, postal address, contacts, microphone or audio, browsing history or advertising identifier. The app contains no advertising and no analytics SDK, and it does not track you across other apps or websites.
3. How the app uses your location
- The app asks for location permission “while using the app” only. It never reads your location in the background.
- At sign-up it reads your location once and keeps only the country.
- At the start of each questionnaire it reads your location once. Your phone’s built-in geocoding service (provided by Google on Android and by Apple on iPhone) turns the reading into a place name, and we store only that place name. On your phone the reading is also used to check whether you might be driving, and is then discarded.
4. Your Research Data and your study code
“Research Data” means your questionnaire answers, photos and place names, your age, sex and sign-up country, and your demographic survey answers. We file it under a random study code, never under your phone number or name. A single protected table links the study code to your sign-in, and only the study team can use it. Your Research Data is therefore pseudonymised, not anonymous: the study team can link it to your account, for example to pay you or to act on a deletion request.
5. How we use your data, and our legal basis
| Purpose | Data | Legal basis under the GDPR |
|---|---|---|
| Running the study: sign-in, scheduling notifications and reminders, your account | Phone number, schedule settings, push identifiers | Performance of our agreement with you (Art. 6(1)(b)) |
| Scientific research on human smell, and publishing its results | Research Data | Our legitimate interest in scientific research (Art. 6(1)(f)); for health data, scientific research purposes with appropriate safeguards (Art. 9(2)(j)) |
| Paying you | Payment details and payment status | Performance of our agreement with you (Art. 6(1)(b)) |
| Answering your support messages | Support messages | Performance of our agreement with you (Art. 6(1)(b)) |
| Keeping the study fair: checking sign-ups, answers and payment requests for fraud and repeat participation | Phone number (including a check by TeleSign), country, hashed IP address, answers, photos, payment requests | Our legitimate interest in preventing fraud (Art. 6(1)(f)) |
| Keeping the app working | Crash reports and server records | Our legitimate interest in a working, secure app (Art. 6(1)(f)) |
| Showing you your own results and comparisons with other participants | Your Research Data, and other participants’ data in aggregated form | Performance of our agreement with you (Art. 6(1)(b)) |
Automated checks at sign-up. Automated checks, including a phone-number check by TeleSign, can decide that a number cannot take part. To protect everyone’s privacy we cannot tell you the reason for a refusal, but you can ask for a person to review it by writing to smellita@weizmann.ac.il.
6. What other participants see
When your study ends, the app shows you “Your smell story”: your results compared with everyone who took part. One card, “Your twin nose”, shows the participant whose descriptions are closest to yours, with only their age, sex and country, never a name, phone number, photo or study code. In the same way, your age, sex and country may appear on another participant’s card.
7. Who receives your data
We do not sell your data. We share it only with:
| Recipient | What they receive | Why | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Our research partners KTH, MPG and KI | Research Data, without your phone number, email address or other directly identifying details | Joint research | Sweden, Germany |
| Appwrite (cloud backend) | Everything the app stores: your account, answers, photos and messages. Appwrite also sends the SMS sign-in codes and push messages through its providers | Hosting and sign-in | Stored in the EU (Germany) |
| TeleSign | Your phone number | Fraud check at sign-up | United States, EU and Serbia (EU Standard Contractual Clauses) |
| Google (Firebase Cloud Messaging) and Apple (Push Notification service) | Push identifiers and notification content | Delivering notifications | United States and worldwide (EU Standard Contractual Clauses) |
| Google (on Android) or Apple (on iPhone) geocoding | One location reading per questionnaire | Turning it into a place name | Worldwide (EU Standard Contractual Clauses) |
| Sentry (Functional Software, Inc.) | Crash and error reports | Keeping the app working | Stored in the EU (Germany) |
| GoGift (GoGift.com A/S) | Your email address and the card value | Paying you by gift card. GoGift is an independent controller for redeeming the card: see its privacy policy | Denmark |
| Google Play and the Apple App Store | What their stores collect when you install or rate the app | Distribution | Worldwide (EU Standard Contractual Clauses) |
| A public research data repository | Research Data without directly identifying information | Open science | Public (research safeguards under Art. 89 GDPR) |
We may also disclose personal data if the law requires it, or to protect the rights and safety of participants, the study team or others.
8. International transfers
Weizmann is in Israel, which the European Commission and the United Kingdom recognise as providing adequate protection for personal data; our partners are in Sweden and Germany. Some of our providers are in the United States or operate worldwide (section 7). When your data goes to a country without such recognition, we rely on safeguards such as the EU Standard Contractual Clauses or the provider’s certification under the EU–US Data Privacy Framework.
9. How long we keep your data
| Data | How long |
|---|---|
| Research Data | 10 years after the research ends, under your study code |
| Research Data published without directly identifying information | Indefinitely |
| Your phone number and account | For the duration of the study, and afterwards until the study stops recruiting new participants, so that each person takes part only once |
| Payment details and payment records | As long as needed to pay you, and as financial record-keeping rules require: payment records for 7 years |
| Support messages | Until the d2smell project ends (31 January 2030) |
| Crash and error reports | Up to 90 days |
| Data stored on your phone | Until you uninstall the app |
10. Your choices and rights
- Quit the study at any time: in the app, Settings → Quit the study. Your notifications stop. Quitting does not delete your data, and you can still request payment for the questionnaires you completed.
- Delete your account: in the app, Settings → Delete my account sends us a request. Without the app, see Delete Account, which also explains what is deleted and what is kept.
- Your rights. Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access your data, receive a copy, correct it, have it erased, restrict or object to its processing, and withdraw consent where we rely on it. Some rights are limited for scientific research (Art. 89 GDPR): for example, data that already forms part of an analysis or a publication cannot be taken out of it. We may need to confirm that a request comes from you.
- To exercise a right, write to smellita@weizmann.ac.il or to any of the joint controllers in section 1.
- Complaints. You may complain to the data protection authority where you live or work. In Israel this is the Privacy Protection Authority.
11. Security
We protect your data with encryption in transit (HTTPS), by keeping your sign-in separate from your research answers, by storing recovery codes only in hashed form, by removing personal details from crash reports, and by limiting staff access to those who need it, with multi-factor sign-in for our support tools. No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your data, we will notify you and the authorities as the law requires.
12. Age limit
SMELLiT is for adults only: 18 or older, or the age of majority where you live if that is higher (19 in South Korea). If we learn that someone younger has signed up, we delete their data.
13. Your photos and free-text answers
Please do not include people, faces or anything that identifies someone (such as documents, screens or licence plates) in your photos, and do not write personal information in your free-text answers.
14. Changes to this policy
We publish changes on this page with a new date and keep earlier versions available. If a change significantly affects how we use your data, we will tell participants who are still taking part through the app’s message inbox before it takes effect.
15. Contact
Questions about this policy or your data: smellita@weizmann.ac.il, or by post to Weizmann Institute of Science, 234 Herzl Street, P.O. Box 26, Rehovot 7610001, Israel.