Data handling statement

1. Scope

This statement covers industrial and research data — material certificates, test results, process settings, quality records and simulation data. Personal data is covered separately in the Privacy notice.

2. What the application stores

• Material data — supplier certificate values and rapid-test results per coil (thickness, yield and tensile strength, elongation, n-value, r-value), coating and lubrication state.
• Process data — cushion-force settings and updates, operator observations, issue types and root causes.
• Model output — predictions, verdicts, recommended settings, sensitivity values and model version/grade for every assessment.
• Quality data — vision-QC detections and human verdicts, technician Go/No-Go decisions.
• Simulation data — finite-element results and derived model artifacts, including validation runs dispatched to an on-premise AutoForm workstation.

3. Where it lives

Data is held in a PostgreSQL database and on a persistent volume on the project's virtual private server, reachable only over HTTPS at data-driven-models.cloud. Simulation validation runs are executed on an on-premise workstation; the connection is outbound-only from that workstation, so no inbound access to plant systems is opened by this application.

[REVIEW: state the hosting region, the backup arrangement (existence, frequency, encryption, retention) and whether the volume/database is encrypted at rest — VPS disk encryption is a known open item in the project's security documentation]

4. How it is used

Data entered into the application is used to produce per-coil assessments, to make records traceable, and — in aggregate — to retrain and validate the underlying models. Retraining is a deliberate, human-verified step: the application monitors for material drift and surfaces it, but no model is replaced automatically.

5. Sharing

Research results and datasets are shared within the CiSMA consortium under the project's FAIR data policy, and may be published in scientific outputs. Commercially sensitive material and process data is shared only as agreed with the party it originates from.

[REVIEW: confirm, per data category, what may be shared with the consortium, what may be published, and what must remain within BTH and the originating partner]

6. Retention and deletion

Project data is retained for the duration of the CiSMA project and its reporting obligations. [REVIEW: set the retention period and the end-of-project disposition — archive, anonymise or delete — per category, and confirm any EU funding record-keeping obligation]

7. Contact

Questions about data handling: Md Shafiqul Islam, Department of Mechanical Engineering, BTH. Last updated: 2026-07-29.