_{UC Berkeley Data Donation}

_{Bitmark technology allows users to take ownership of their digital lives and help advance the frontiers of public health.}

CONCEPT

Our phones and fitness devices track our steps, calories, sleep cycles, and more. This data is empowering and helps improve our wellbeing. This data can also aid research in myriad areas.

If you could safely and easily donate your data directly to those who are advancing the frontiers of public health, wouldn’t you want to do that?

One thing that was eye-opening is that we learned that researchers benefit from this digital donation process as much as the participants who are donating their data.

Both parties who are using Bitmark (the researchers and the participants) gain security, increased clarity, simplicity, and personal value.

ROLE

Product owner & design: product spec, researcher contact wireframes, UI/UX design, responsive design

TEAM

UC Berkeley School of Public Health students: Madelena Ng & Victor Villalobos

BITMARK INC.

THE PROCESS WE ARE TRYING TO IMPROVE

By partnering with UC Berkeley School of Public Health, USA, to allow students to safely and securely donate the health and fitness data from their phones, wearables and other devices to research studies in diabetes care and women’s health. The Bitmark technology automates the entire donation process by:

Connecting researchers and data donors;
Extracting personal data and converting it into digital property; and
Establishing a verifiable record of donations.

In this way, the donors know exactly how, where, why and by whom their data is being used, and the researchers can verify the provenance of the data and confirm the donor’s consent to it being used.

PRODUCT STRATEGY

How the studies will work with bot:

Bitmark is developing simple tools that connect researchers to potential data donors through popular Messenger apps such as Facebook Messenger and WeChat. These tools, also known as a “bot,” automate the entire donation process:

1. discovering available studies,

2. extracting personal data and converting it into digital property,

3. recording consent such that a researcher can use the valuable digital property in their study.

Berkeley students will know exactly where their data is being used and for what purposes; researchers can directly confirm the provenance of data and the students’ consent to use it. Behind the scenes, the Bitmark bot interfaces with the Bitmark blockchain to provide a verifiable record of data donations, protecting both the researcher and data donor, without relying on central intermediaries.

Studies will collect data two main categories of data:

1. iOS HealthKit data — such as characteristics (birth date, blood type,…), basic samples (height, weight, body fat,…), sleep samples, food samples (calories, vitamins,…), exercise samples (steps, flights climbed,…) and reproductive samples.

2. Health tech wearables, devices, and sensor data from over 300 different data streams — such as Fitbit, Nest, Aware, and more.

Individuals can also ask the Bitmark bot simple questions such as, “How is my data been used?” and get back instant answers. At any time participants can opt out of donating data.

STUDY CARD GRAPHIC GUIDELINE

New studies are presented in the form of study cards. These study cards efficiently outline basic information about each study for users to view. If the study interests the user, they can participate by simply tapping the join button.

Card Features:

Institution: logo + name
Title of study
Duration of study
Colors of institution for background

Proposed design:

01. START WITH BITMARK BOT AND BROWSE STUDY

02. STUDY DETAILS AND THE ELIGIBLE SURVEY

03. CONSENT TO CONNECT THE APPS AND ACCESS HEALTH DATA

04. HEALTH ACCESS AND SUCCESS JOINED STUDY

USER BENEFITS

Researchers can:

• Access data on new devices

• Crowdsource data from different sources

• Easily conduct studies through customizable studies and instantly retrievable data

• Enroll more participants faster

• Quickly authenticate data

• Obtain clear consent for each data donation

Donors can:

• Automatically input data through the Health app

• Track and manage donations at registry.bitmark.com

• Easily join and opt out of studies,

• Ensure secure and private data collection through manually given consent which is quickly retrieved in the click of a button.

KERWIN CHEN

PRODUCT DESIGN