Research Participant Information and Consent Notice

1. Who is conducting this research?

This research is being conducted by UAPRAD.

UAPRAD operates a commercial research and educational website. The findings from this project may be used in articles, reports, educational materials, and other commercial website content produced by UAPRAD.

Contact details for questions, withdrawal requests, and data-protection requests are provided at the end of this notice.

2. What is the purpose of the research?

UAPRAD is collecting responses submitted through its Community Polls page and, where specified, public replies to a UAPRAD post on X to better understand opinions, experiences, and perspectives relating to:

How people form views about UAP research, what evidence or experience informs those views, and what makes the subject difficult or easier to engage with.

The research is exploratory. People who choose to respond are self-selecting, and respondents should not be treated as a representative sample of the general population unless UAPRAD has used and documented an appropriate sampling method.

3. Who may participate?

Participation is open only to people aged 18 or over.

You should not participate if you do not want your response or public reply to be collected and analysed by UAPRAD for the purposes described in this notice.

Please do not include:

• Confidential information;
• Private information about another person;
• Information that you do not have permission to disclose; or
• Sensitive personal information unless the research question specifically requests it and this notice expressly explains how it will be handled.

4. What does participation involve?

Participation involves submitting a response through the UAPRAD Community Polls page during the stated data-collection period. Where a related research activity is conducted on X, participation may instead involve publicly replying to the specified UAPRAD post during the stated period.

Before participating, you should read this notice and any short consent notice attached to the relevant X post.

By voluntarily submitting a response or replying after these notices have been made available, you confirm that:

• You are aged 18 or over;
• You have read and understood this notice;
• You understand that a reply to X will be publicly visible on X;
• You consent to UAPRAD collecting and analysing your response or reply;
• You understand that UAPRAD is a commercial research and educational organisation;
• You understand that the findings may be published on UAPRAD's commercial website and in related content; and
• You understand that participation is voluntary and that you may withdraw as explained below.

You do not have to participate. Choosing not to participate will have no adverse consequences.

5. What information will UAPRAD collect?

UAPRAD may collect the following information from the research activity:

• The text of your response or reply;
• Your name or X handle and display name, if provided;
• The public URL of your reply, where the research activity takes place on X;
• The date and time of your response or reply;
• Relevant public conversational context;
• Whether you have requested attribution;
• Records relating to your consent or withdrawal request; and
• Any response categories or research codes assigned during the analysis.

Handles and reply URLs may be retained during the research process so that UAPRAD can manage consent, identify duplicate responses, review context, and honour withdrawal requests.

UAPRAD will not use participation in this research to add you to a marketing list or contact you about unrelated products or services.

6. How will the responses be analysed?

UAPRAD may conduct both qualitative and quantitative analysis.

Qualitative analysis

Qualitative analysis may include:

• Thematic analysis;
• Content analysis;
• Coding responses into recurring topics or categories;
• Identifying similarities, differences, and contrasting perspectives;
• Examining the reasoning or experiences expressed in responses; and
• Producing narrative summaries of the principal themes.

Quantitative analysis

Quantitative analysis may include:

• Counting responses or coded categories;
• Reporting frequencies, proportions, and percentages;
• Describing the distribution of responses;
• Comparing response categories;
• Examining associations between categories where appropriate; and
• Producing tables, charts, and other descriptive summaries.

UAPRAD will clearly distinguish descriptive observations from findings that support broader statistical conclusions.

Unless a suitable research design and sample support such a conclusion, UAPRAD will not claim that respondents represent all X users, the public generally, or any wider population.

Research tools

For this activity, analysis and administration may use the UAPRAD website, Cloudflare Pages and Workers, Cloudflare D1 storage, and ordinary spreadsheet or text-analysis tools operated by authorised UAPRAD personnel. If UAPRAD uses an artificial-intelligence or external analysis service for identifiable responses, this notice will be updated before responses are provided to that service to identify the service, the information supplied, and any relevant retention or reuse terms.

UAPRAD will not use the responses to make decisions affecting an individual's eligibility for employment, insurance, credit, services, or other significant opportunities.

7. How will findings be published?

UAPRAD will normally publish findings in a de-identified form.

By default, published content will not contain:

• Participants' names;
• X handles;
• Profile photographs;
• Screenshots of individual replies;
• Links to individual replies; or
• Searchable verbatim quotations that could readily identify their authors.

UAPRAD may paraphrase or combine responses when reporting broader themes, provided that the resulting material does not reasonably identify an individual participant.

Published research may include aggregated findings, response counts, percentages, charts, tables, qualitative themes, and general summaries.

The original discussion will remain publicly accessible on X unless the relevant user or X removes it. Someone who independently finds the original post may therefore be able to see who participated and what they wrote. UAPRAD cannot guarantee anonymity at the source.

8. Optional attribution

Participation does not require you to be identified.

UAPRAD will identify you only where you provide a separate and explicit request for attribution.

To request attribution, use the following wording in your reply or contact UAPRAD separately:

"I consent to UAPRAD attributing my contribution to my X handle, @[handle]."

Before publishing an attributed quotation or detailed attributed account, UAPRAD may contact you to confirm:

• The wording that will be used;
• Whether your contribution will be quoted or paraphrased;
• Which handle or name will appear;
• Where the material will be published; and
• The scope of your permission.

Requesting attribution does not guarantee that UAPRAD will publish your handle or contribution.

Permission to display a handle does not automatically constitute permission to reproduce a profile photograph, biography, other posts, or additional personal information.

You may participate anonymously in UAPRAD's published findings without opting into attribution.

9. What is UAPRAD's lawful basis?

UAPRAD intends to rely on your consent as its lawful basis for collecting and analysing the personal information submitted through this research activity.

Consent is indicated by voluntarily submitting a response or replying after the research notice and this participant information have been made available.

Separate consent will be obtained before UAPRAD publishes identifying information, an attributed quotation, a screenshot, or other identifiable material.

UAPRAD does not intend to collect special-category personal information or criminal-offence information unless the research has been specifically designed to examine such information and the relevant legal and ethical requirements have first been addressed.

10. Can consent be withdrawn?

Yes.

You may withdraw your consent by contacting:

contact@uaprad.org

Please provide your name or X handle and, where possible, a link to your reply or enough detail to locate the response.

Withdrawal requests should be submitted before publication or irreversible anonymisation, whichever occurs first.

Where withdrawal is received before that point, UAPRAD will remove your identifiable response from the active research material and exclude it from future analysis where reasonably possible.

Deleting your reply on X does not necessarily notify UAPRAD that you wish to withdraw. You should therefore contact UAPRAD directly as well.

Withdrawal does not invalidate processing that lawfully occurred before consent was withdrawn.

Once a contribution has been irreversibly anonymised and incorporated into aggregated findings that can no longer be connected to you, UAPRAD may be unable to identify and remove that individual contribution.

If you separately consented to attribution, you may withdraw that attribution permission using the same contact details. UAPRAD will remove the attribution from material under its control where reasonably possible, although copies, archives, or quotations made by third parties may remain accessible.

11. How will the information be stored?

Research records will be accessible only to people authorised by UAPRAD to conduct, supervise, or administer the research.

Identifying information will be stored separately from coded analysis data where reasonably practicable.

UAPRAD will use appropriate organisational and technical safeguards, including:

• Limiting access to authorised personnel;
• Securing accounts and storage systems;
• Using participant codes during analysis where appropriate;
• Avoiding unnecessary duplication of identifiable material;
• Removing direct identifiers from working analysis files where possible; and
• Maintaining records of consent, attribution, and withdrawal requests.

12. How long will the information be retained?

UAPRAD has not set a fixed deletion date for this exploratory activity. Identifiable research records, including names, handles, and reply URLs, will be retained only for as long as reasonably necessary for research administration, analysis, publication management, consent and withdrawal requests, legal obligations, and operational record-keeping.

UAPRAD will securely delete identifiable records or irreversibly anonymise them when they are no longer reasonably needed, unless continued retention is required for a documented legal reason.

Consent and attribution records may be retained for as long as necessary to demonstrate the permissions governing published material.

De-identified or aggregated research findings may be retained for a longer period, including indefinitely, where individuals are no longer reasonably identifiable.

13. Will information be shared with anyone else?

UAPRAD may share information with service providers that support data storage, analysis, website publication, security, or research administration.

The relevant providers and services are:

• Cloudflare: website hosting, security, serverless processing, and D1 database storage;
• X: the original public reply platform and public discussion context for research activities conducted on X; and
• UAPRAD authorised research and administration tools: response review, coding, analysis, and publication preparation.

UAPRAD will not sell participants' identifiable information or provide it to advertisers for targeting purposes.

If information is processed outside the United Kingdom, UAPRAD will identify and apply the relevant safeguards required for the international transfer.

The original public reply will also remain subject to X's own terms, privacy practices, and platform controls.

14. What are the possible risks?

The principal foreseeable risks include:

• Your original reply and handle remaining publicly visible on X;
• Other users associating you with the research topic;
• A distinctive response being recognisable even if your handle is omitted from UAPRAD's publication;
• Search engines, archives, or third parties retaining copies of public posts; and
• Disagreement, criticism, or unwanted attention arising from participation in a public discussion.

UAPRAD will reduce these risks through data minimisation, de-identification, aggregation, careful paraphrasing, and separate permission for attribution.

You should not participate if these risks are unacceptable to you.

15. Your data-protection rights

Depending on the circumstances and applicable law, you may have rights concerning the personal information UAPRAD holds about you, including rights to:

• Request access to your personal information;
• Request correction of inaccurate information;
• Request deletion;
• Restrict certain processing;
• Withdraw consent;
• Object to particular uses; and
• Make a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office.

Some rights may no longer apply once information has been irreversibly anonymised because UAPRAD will no longer be able to identify which information relates to you.

16. Questions, withdrawal, and complaints

For questions about the research, contact:

UAPRAD Research Team
Research contact: UAPRAD Research Team
Email: contact@uaprad.org
Website: www.uaprad.org

For consent withdrawal or data-protection requests, contact:

UAPRAD Privacy Team
Privacy contact: UAPRAD Privacy Team
Email: contact@uaprad.org

You may also raise a concern with the UK Information Commissioner's Office. You are not required to contact UAPRAD before doing so, although UAPRAD welcomes the opportunity to address concerns directly.

17. Changes to the research

UAPRAD may make minor administrative or explanatory changes to this notice.

UAPRAD will not materially expand the purpose of the research, introduce substantially different forms of analysis, or begin new identifiable uses of participants' responses without providing further information and obtaining additional consent where required.

Related policies: Privacy Policy, Research Disclaimer, and Community Guidelines.