Form transparency There are some privacy concerns regarding the Google Forms used to submit confessions (#APUCP00277, #APUCP00613), which is a fair question to ask as we did promised anonymity for your confession. While we can’t prove that our form is 100% anonymous, this document can help you identify what the form owner can see according to how the form is presented to you. With this, you can judge if you want to fill in the Google Forms you received. Jump to Confession form settings if you just want to know our settings and what we can see. Form settings There are 2 settings in Google Forms that allows form to require email address in some way: Collect emails and Limit to 1 response. With collect emails turned on, there will be a required field for responder to enter their email address. Should you signed into your Google account, the form will also display your current Google account email address at the top of the form. The form response will include your email address, which allows the form owner to see who submitted the response. Despite turning on limit to 1 response, the form owner will not be informed about who submitted the response. This is because Google will handle the form restriction for the owner by tracking the Google account used for each response. The Google account doesn’t show up in the responses tab, but by removing the response, the user may use the same Google account to answer the form again. What to look for Here are the screenshots of what you will see according to form settings. Scenario 1 • Collect emails [Off] • Limit to 1 response [Off] • Not signed in The form has no email field, no prompt to sign in, and doesn’t display your Google account. Scenario 2 • Collect emails [On] • Limit to 1 response [Off] • Not signed in The form has an email field, but no prompt to sign in and doesn’t display your Google account. Scenario 3 • Collect emails [Off] • Limit to 1 response [On] • Not signed in The form has no email field and doesn’t display your Google account, but it prompts you to sign in. Notice that Google mentions that your identity will remain anonymous. Scenario 4 • Collect emails [On] • Limit to 1 response [On] • Not signed in The form has an email field and it prompts you to sign in, but it doesn’t show your Google account. Despite Google mentions that your identity will remain anonymous, you still have to fill in an email address. Scenario 5 • Collect emails [Off] • Signed in When you signed in your Google account, it will display your Google account. It does mention that your account address is not shared, as indicated with the icon. There is no email field, which means that the form owner will receive any email address as response. Scenario 6 • Collect emails [On] • Signed in When you signed in your Google account, it will display your Google account. As collect emails is turned on, there is an email field, which means the form owner will see the email that you filled in and can identify you through that. What the owner sees Below are what the form owner sees according to each form settings: • Row 2 – Scenario 1 • Row 3 – Scenario 2 • Row 4 – Scenario 3 • Row 5 – Scenario 4 • Scenario 5 - Row 2, Scenario 6 - Row 3 Confession form settings Finally, this is what we set for our confession form: This is how the form looks like when you signed into your Google account: This is how the form looks like when opened with an incognito browser: Lastly, this is how the response looks like in the Google Sheets:
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