Join Family Buddy
a lifestyle study before, during and after the pregnancy!

Privacy Declaration

Personal Data

Erasmus MC respects your privacy and attaches great importance to the protection of your personal data. In this privacy statement, we explain which personal data we collect when you use the Family Buddy app, why we collect it, who has access to this data, and how you can exercise your privacy rights. When you are being treated at Erasmus MC, the general privacy statement applies to the data used for the provision of care; for this, please refer to the: Privacy Statement.

Use of the app

The Family Buddy app serves as a tool to support you and/or your partner and any children under 3 years of age through coaching regarding healthy eating and lifestyle habits and well-being before, during, and in the first years after pregnancy (early life stage). This can increase the chance of pregnancy, an undisturbed course of the pregnancy, and better health for your young family. Additionally, the program is a tool to achieve goals, connect with other users, and be informed about activities in your area. The app also offers useful information for (social) care providers, health educators, volunteers, or others involved in conducting a lifestyle care consultation. The user always remains personally responsible for following the advice provided by the program.

As a participant in the program, you answer the questions yourself to map out your nutritional and lifestyle habits and well-being. Using this data, a tailored coaching program is prepared that you follow on your mobile phone to provide you with more knowledge and skills to change unhealthy habits and maintain healthy ones.

The content of the program is a further development of the web application and app Slimmer Zwanger (>2011) or (> 2023). The program has been supplemented with the latest knowledge, insights, and technical innovations (artificial intelligence, chatbot, sleep bot) and contributions from users (including those from Rotterdam-IJsselmonde), researchers, (para)medical professionals, and behavioral experts. Erasmus MC is not liable for any direct or indirect damage that may arise from the use of the information provided. No rights or claims can be derived from the content of the app in any way.

Erasmus MC does not guarantee that following the program will detect and change all existing health risks and habits. Therefore, no guarantee can be given regarding a (healthy) pregnancy and the birth of a healthy child that also grows up healthy.

The Family Buddy app contains links to websites and apps offered by parties other than Erasmus MC. These links are for informational purposes only. Erasmus MC has no control over these websites and is not responsible or liable for the information, products, and/or services offered on them.

Processing of personal and coaching data

You enter your personal data (name, address, email address, telephone number, date of birth, gender, height, weight, pregnancy (duration), optional email address of your partner) in advance via the website slimmerzwangeronderzoek.nl. This data is used for:

  • during pre-registration, for screening for suitability to participate in the Family Buddy study
  • if deemed suitable for participation, to technically enable the screening and coaching with the Family Buddy app
  • for your login credentials to grant access to the Family Buddy app
  • to invite you via push notifications during the program to complete an additional questionnaire regarding, among other things, your well
  • being and experiences with the program
  • for administrative purposes

After this, you install the Family Buddy app and log in for the first time using your email address and password. This proves that the data belongs to you and that third parties cannot access it without your permission.

The app's coaching program consists of answering questions and reading information and advice tailored to your dietary and lifestyle habits, well-being, and early life stage. Further coaching components include diaries in which you can record your goals and mood, a chat and sleep bot, and a screening for safe medication use. Visitor Data

While participating in the Family Buddy program, visitor data is recorded in the app. This includes, for example, the date of registration for participation, the duration of time spent logged in, browsing behavior, IP addresses, and URLs. This data may be used for:

technical management purposes, such as ensuring sufficient server capacity for the number of participants
administration
research

This anonymized data may be shared with third parties.

Coaching Data

By participating in the Family Buddy program, personal nutrition, lifestyle habits, well-being, early life stages, medication and vitamin use, as well as diary data, are stored. This is necessary for this program. The anonymized data from the Family Buddy app may be used for scientific research with the aim of improving health in the early lifespan and thereby increasing the chances of (uncomplicated) pregnancy and better health for women, partners, and (unborn) children. The results of the scientific research will be published.

Technical user data

We collect personal data regarding the use of the Family Buddy app to improve our services, to gain insight into the use of the app, to identify trends and patterns, and to take measures to ensure the quality and safety of the digital services. This data is not traceable to an individual and is stored anonymously locally and retained for a maximum of 15 years. This concerns the following data:

  • Application version
  • City and district
  • Device model
  • Device type
  • Operation system

Retention period of personal, coaching, visitor, and technical data

All this data will be retained for 15 years after the completion of this research. Afterwards, this data is destroyed.

Where is your data located?

The data that Erasmus MC collects and uses when you use the Family Buddy app is stored locally on your own phone or on servers in the Netherlands. Erasmus MC does not provide data to organizations outside the Netherlands, unless you have given explicit permission for this during your participation in the study.

The Family Buddy app is hosted by Peercode and the data is stored on servers of Cloud VPS.

Your rights

As a user of the Family Buddy app, you have various rights regarding your personal data:

  • the right to information
  • the right of access
  • the right to rectification
  • the right to erasure (right to be forgotten)
  • the right to restriction of processing
  • the right to data portability
  • the right to object
  • the right not to be subject to automated individual decision-making/profiling

To exercise your rights, you can contact: Family Buddy Helpdesk, by email at slimmerzwanger@erasmusmc.nl

Contact

Do you have questions or comments about the protection of your data? Please contact the Data Protection Officer (DPO) of Erasmus MC. You can do this by sending an email to:functionaris.gegevensbescherming@erasmusmc.nl or by contacting us by phone at: +31 10 703 49 86.

If you wish to file a complaint, you can use the digital complaint form. After completion, the form will be automatically sent to the complaints officer. There is also the option to send your complaint by post. You can find more information on how to do this on the Erasmus MC website.