Declaration of Consent

Consent and information on the collection and processing of personal data for researching future power grids in the research project “Datenspende”.

This English text is a convenience translation; the German version is authoritative. This page reproduces the consent you give digitally when setting up the Datenspende integration. The full privacy information is in the privacy policy; this page summarizes and refers instead of repeating.

Research project

“Datenspende”, part of the SAFEr Grid project, funded by the European Research Council (ERC Synergy Grant, EU Horizon Europe, grant no. 101166783). Voluntarily participating citizens donate electrical time-series data (electricity consumption and production) from their smart home platforms so that future power grids can be simulated and researched realistically. The project is covered by an approved ethics application of the cross-faculty Ethics Committee of RWTH Aachen University.

Controller and contact

The controller is the Rector of RWTH Aachen University (Templergraben 55, 52062 Aachen). Implementation: Chair of Communication and Distributed Systems (COMSYS, Informatik 4), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Klaus Wehrle, Ahornstraße 55, 52074 Aachen, datenspende@comsys.rwth-aachen.de. Project lead and contact person: Johannes Lohmöller, lohmoeller@comsys.rwth-aachen.de, +49 241 80 21421. The RWTH Data Protection Officers can be reached at dsb@rwth-aachen.de.

With your consent, the following is processed (details):

energy time series of the devices and household readings you approve (power, energy, and where available voltage and current, each with timestamps),
metadata of these devices: their name in your smart home, vendor and model (nameplate details), and the device type you assign,
a pseudonymous participation identifier, your credentials for the data portal (self-chosen username and password), and the recorded time of your consent,
optional details, if you provide them: postcode, country, number of people in the household, living area in square metres, construction year of the building (in the data portal), and an e-mail address for contact.

The data is stored on RWTH Aachen servers in Germany and processed exclusively for the stated research purposes. No transfers to third countries take place. Publication is anonymized only: the time series keep their original resolution, and all metadata is generalized beforehand so that it no longer marks out any single household (k-anonymity). The published time series still contain patterns such as times of presence and absence. Through the published details they cannot be attributed to a particular household, but a residual risk of recognition from the load profile itself cannot be fully excluded (details).

Legal basis, voluntariness, and revocation

The legal basis is your consent pursuant to Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR. Participation is voluntary; not participating has no disadvantages for you. You can revoke your consent at any time with effect for the future, in the data portal or by e-mail to datenspende@comsys.rwth-aachen.de. Already published, anonymized datasets cannot be recalled (details).

Your rights

You have the rights to access, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing, data portability, and objection, as well as the right to lodge a complaint with the LDI NRW (details). Retention periods are described in the privacy policy.

Declaration

When setting up the integration, you confirm the following declaration:

I consent to the collection and processing of the personal data listed above (energy time series and metadata of the devices I approved, and my voluntary additional details) for the research purposes of the “Datenspende” project, including the publication of exclusively anonymized datasets. I am aware that I am not obliged to give this consent and that I can revoke it at any time with effect for the future.