We take data privacy seriously at Prolific.

We've recently updated our standard privacy notices, and the legal terms applicable to your use of Prolific, to make them more readable and to reflect some new product features and developments in law.

Legal wording can be hard to digest. So, to make our documentation as easy as possible to understand, we're introducing reader-friendly summaries to supplement the full versions. We've also rewritten the full versions in "plain English", and stripped out as much legal jargon as possible. We're also making the full versions more navigable, and separating them out by context so you're not sifting information which isn't relevant to you (so, for example, we're rolling out separate privacy notices for researchers and participants).

At the same time, we appreciate from our researcher users that sometimes you want even more information than is set out in our standard terms. Data protection law in particular is complex, and changing frequently, and sometimes it's helpful for researchers to have an explanation of not just what our terms say, but why they say it, by reference to specific principles of law. We're embedding additional optional information in our standard terms, to try to cater not just to readers who want an easily-digestible summary, but also to readers who want to lean into the legal detail.

We also expect that the new documentation will be easier to update from time to time, and that it will be easier for our users to review any updates we do roll out. We're working on a number of exciting new product features which might lead to some minor changes, and we're conscious that the laws of the UK (especially in relation to data protection, and online services in general) are changing unusually rapidly post-Brexit.

In practical terms, the updates to our privacy notices and terms will not affect our existing users very much: we're not changing the fundamentals of our platform, or how it works. However, one  of our core company values is 'Trust' and we're committed to doing more to live that value.

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