Information letter and privacy (GDPR)
Master’s thesis Product Development · study ‘Waste on multi-day trips’ · version 2, 16 October 2026
You are about to take part in a scientific study on how hikers, bikepackers, thru-hikers and wild campers deal with their waste during multi-day trips, carried out by Mathijs Tuyaerts (master’s student in Product Development) under the supervision of Bruno Van Son, at the Faculty of Design Sciences of the University of Antwerp (Belgium). The aim is to understand what goes wrong today and what would make it easier to carry all your waste out. This may later lead to a product, a service or a system.
Your participation consists of one or more of the following: an online survey (about 10 minutes), an interview (15 to 45 minutes, in person, by phone or online), a waste diary during a trip or an observation on a trip or at a campsite. Participation takes place between October 2026 and June 2027.
The online survey is anonymous. The survey does not ask for your name, e-mail address or any other data that could identify you, and no IP addresses are collected. Answers are stored with Tally (a Belgian company; data encrypted and stored in the European Union) and afterwards on the secured servers of the University of Antwerp. Because the answers are anonymous, they cannot be linked to you or deleted separately after submission. You give your consent by ticking the box at the start of the survey.
In an interview, waste diary or observation the researchers can identify you. Under the GDPR we are required to register your first and last name when you consent to take part. Consent forms in which you can be identified are stored separately and digitally (digitised if needed) for 10 years, in password-protected files at a separate location on the secured servers of the AUHA (Antwerp University Association). These consent forms are only accessible to Mathijs Tuyaerts (author of the thesis) and Bruno Van Son (supervisor).
We also collect other data through which you could be identified, via recordings (audio, photos of waste or gear, notes). Recordings are transcribed locally on the researcher’s computer and are not processed by online AI services without your explicit consent. Notes and reports use codes instead of names. By 30 June 2027 at the latest, and before the analyses start, we anonymise our datasets and delete the recordings. From then on you can no longer be identified in any dataset or result of this study. The anonymised datasets are stored digitally for up to 10 years after the end of the study.
Extra anonymity on request. If you want a quote, photo, place, organisation or job title to be made extra unrecognisable, for example in a jury presentation, just tell us before or after the interview. We will adapt it or leave it out.
You have the right to view files in which you can be identified, as long as they are kept. You can only view data about yourself. Data can be changed or deleted in exceptional cases, if this does not endanger the purpose of the research.
You have the right to refuse to take part or to stop at any time. You do not need to give a reason and this will not lead to any disadvantage. Data already collected can be deleted at your request, unless this endangers the purpose of the research or the data are already anonymous.
The researchers have the right to share anonymous data files with (inter)national colleagues for scientific research. These files are not accessible to other parties, including yourself or companies and organisations outside scientific research institutions. The data are not used for commercial purposes.
For further questions or remarks you can contact the contact person of this project: mathijstuyaertss@gmail.com. For questions about the collection of data through which you can be identified, you can also contact the
Data Protection Officer or the Privacy Office of the University of Antwerp: privacy@uantwerpen.be. If you believe that any of the persons above is not processing your personal data lawfully, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Belgian Data Protection Authority (
www.dataprotectionauthority.be). We do recommend contacting our data protection officer first; problems or misunderstandings can often be solved quickly that way.
An interview, waste diary or observation only starts after a signed consent form (on paper or digital), which the researcher will give you.
Universiteit Antwerpen
Faculteit Ontwerpwetenschappen
Stadscampus
Mutsaardstraat 29
2000 Antwerpen, Belgium
You can simply close this tab to return to the survey.