Surveying Germany on coronavirus and data donation
The COVID-19 pandemic has a firm grip on world events. While vaccines are currently being researched, it will take time before they are readily available. Until then, we urgently need other solutions to help us gradually return to everyday life and prevent a second wave of COVID-19 infections. Digital solutions can be a deciding factor in accelerating research.
We surveyed 5,002 people in Germany to get a better understanding of how the population views topics like data protection and donating personal data (e.g. pulse rate and step count) to support research.
Data is strictly regulated in Germany, making Germany and the European Union pioneers when it comes to many international debates on data protection. New topics are currently being discussed as several countries have already shown that implementing digital solutions is an effective way to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. We conducted this survey to find out what percentage of the German population would be willing to donate health data and under which conditions they would agree to data donation. The results provide exciting new insights on public opinion throughout the country.
"By sharing health data, citizens can significantly accelerate medical research and notably improve healthcare," said Professor Erwin Böttinger, head of the Digital Health Center at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam in response to the survey results.
Question 1
What would convince you to share your medical data digitally with doctors and research institutions?

Question 2
Which health-related data would you share while protecting privacy in order to speed up research of coronavirus?

Question 3
For what purpose would you provide health data (pulse, fever, pre-existing illnesses) and movement data (location, distance measurement) to COVID-19 research?

Visual summary of survey results
Interested in a short summary of our data donation survey results and analysis? Here’s an infographic you can share with family and friends.

Information on survey
Source: The results are based on a representative survey of 5,002 participants in the Federal Republic of Germany, conducted from April 20–30, 2020. Statistical error is 2.5%, and the survey was conducted by civey.com.