Relevance & Research Question: Surveys have been used as main tool of data collection in many areas of research and for many years. However, the environment is changing, more and more quickly, creating new challenges and opportunities. In this new context, human memory limitations lead to non-accurate results when using surveys in order to study objective online behaviors: people cannot recall everything they did.

Methods & Data: We investigate the possibilities of using, in addition to survey data, passive data coming from a tracking application (called "meter") installed on the participants’ device to register their online behavior. This poster presents both the main drawbacks and the potential added value linked to passive data collection. It uses data collected in spring 2015 using the Netquest metered panel in Spain.

Results: The poster shows that there are still important limitations to the use of passive data, but also that the data from the web survey and the meter lead to very different results about the online behaviors of the same sample of respondents. This suggests the need for combining several sources of data collection in the future.

Added Value: This study is the first, at our knowledge, that compares, for the same sample, data from surveys and from a meter installed on both PCs and mobile devices. It is a first step toward understanding when and how active and passive data could be combined in the future. This could allow getting a more complete and accurate picture of the phenomena of interest.