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Protecting Human Subjects in Internet Research

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Protecting Human Subjects in Internet Research EJBO Electronic Journal of Business Ethics and Organization Studies Vol. 10, No. 1 (2005) Protecting Human Subjects in Internet Research By: Larry A. Pace Practical, Legal, and transforms basic aspects of human exist- [email protected] Ethical Challenges ence, such as identity, language, confiden- Mary M. Livingston tiality, that are at the core of any society Researchers are increasingly turning and are protected in most countries by to the World Wide Web as a convenient, local law” (p. 6). They advocate moving ubiquitous laboratory for gathering data from a “purely instrumental or moralist Abstract and conducting research (Buchanan, view” to an “ethics of care.” The growth of the Internet as a 2004; Reips, in press). There are many In this paper, the authors identify differences between conducting psycho- several key issues regarding the protec- research venue has led to practical, logical research in a person-to-person tion of human subjects in Internet-based legal, and ethical problems regard- setting and an online environment, yet research, describe the ethical and legal ing the protection of human sub- the ethical and legal issues involving the considerations related to these issues, jects. Among these are difficulty in protection of human subjects are the summarize the present codes address- verifying subjects’ identities, gaining same. Researchers in the Information ing these issues both in the United States informed consent, and assuring ethi- Age must face and deal responsibly with and Europe, and provide a set of work- these issues. ing guidelines for conducting ethical and cally-correct research. The authors While legal and ethical issues regard- lawful online research. These guidelines summarize the current standards ing the protection of human subjects should have broad applicability regard- pertaining to the protection of participating in online research are es- less of the ethical system adopted. human subjects in online research sentially the same as those in real-world and present a set of guidelines for research, it is likely that the solutions to dealing ethically, legally, and practi- the ethical dilemmas created by online Issues in Internet-Based Research research will not be the same as those cally with the issues of privacy and practiced in the laboratory. Solutions The commercialized Internet acces- confidentiality, intellectual property, that work in the physical world require sible through graphical web browsers is informed consent, and protection separate consideration and modification little more than a decade old, but Inter- from harm. As computer-mediated for virtual application. net-enabled electronic communication communications merge and evolve, Social scientists have expressed con- and concomitant research venues have as the Internet becomes more and cern that applying a human-subject-pro- proliferated over that period of time. tection model developed for science and Computer-mediated communications more a part of everyday life, and medicine to the kinds of research con- include electronic mail, chatrooms, news- as standards for ethical and lawful ducted by psychologists, political scien- groups, listservs, web-based experiments online research are instituted, sepa- tists, and anthropologists was inappro- and surveys, message boards, threaded rate consideration of human subject priate even in the real-world environment discussion forums, web logs (or blogs), protection issues in online research (AAUP, 2000). Regulations developed and collaborative web sites. A fundamen- will become less important. for the real-world medical environment tal issue is whether these venues are to be are even less appropriate when applied considered public or private. If they are to social science research conducted in an public, the archived responses of indi- online setting. viduals may be construed to be matters Keywords The set of United States regulations of public record, and few ethical consid- Internet research, research ethics, concerning the protection of human sub- erations apply when the records of these jects is often referred to as “the Common responses are used in research. protection of human subjects, in- Rule” (DHHS, 2001), and they are in- If web-based venues are private, how- formed consent, privacy, intellectual deed the Common Rule for the United ever, individuals’ responses may be privi- property States. However, regulations and ethi- leged and protected, and could only be cal standards exist in other parts of the used in research with clear protection world. Thus, the global nature of Internet of the identity, autonomy, and informed research complicates the application of consent of the participant. The determi- these guidelines. For example, contrasting nation of “private information” by United the United States and Germany, Capurro States statute hinges on the individual and Pingle (2001) point out that the re- participant’s “reasonable expectation of search traditions and fundamental ethical privacy” (DHHS, 2001). assumptions and views of personal data In an online environment one’s level differ widely even within the Western of technological sophistication could play philosophical tradition. The reason for a major role in determining perceptions this variation “is that the online medium of privacy. More experienced Internet us- 35 http://ejbo.jyu.fi/ EJBO Electronic Journal of Business Ethics and Organization Studies Vol. 10, No. 1 (2005) ers may be aware of the identifiable digital footprints left behind ally identified (see for example Denzin, 1999). Such research- as they traverse the Internet, while neophytes may believe they ers state that information gathered by lurking passively in an are cloaked in electronic anonymity. Privacy, then, must involve Internet chatroom, for example, is a matter of public record. more than an objective determination by the researcher alone. Indeed, the collection and analysis of such publicly available The same chatroom that a naïve participant perceives as limited information may be justified without consent under strict cir- to those actively engaged in discussion may be experienced as cumstances (Bruckman, 2002). In some cases the researcher less isolated, more transparent, and publicly visible by another. goes beyond observation to create the virtual environment and Knowledgeable, computer-savvy researchers cannot assume may even create virtual confederates who react to the subject that their own perceptions of privacy or lack of it are shared by in preprogrammed ways (see for example Williams, Cheung & research participants. Some writers dismiss the issue, describing Choi, 2000). At the other extreme, many researchers are taking expectations of privacy as “misplaced” (Walther, 2001). Others precautions to ensure that participants in online research are describe such beliefs as naïve or unrealistic. Simply dismissing fully informed and give their voluntary consent to the use of the privacy expectations of naïve subjects as unrealistic begs their responses in research studies. the question of who is really naïve. It is also possible that the After World War II, the Nuremberg Code established the experimental context may alter expectations regarding privacy. foundation for modern ethical standards for psychological and For instance, while one would normally not take candy from medical research using human subjects (Gravetter & Gorzano, strangers, one might feel safe taking it from an experimenter. 2003; Graziano & Raulin, 2000; Katz, 1972). Ethical guide- Online, one might feel safer typing in a credit card number on lines for the use and treatment of human subjects embody prin- a secure bank web site than on a general site. In the same fash- ciples requiring protection from harm, informed consent, and ion, subjects might feel that their responses were protected from confidentiality. scrutiny on a web site devoted to an experimental survey. The primary codes in the United States presently regulating A second major issue in Internet-based research is the ability online psychological research are the American Psychological of both researchers and subjects to assume anonymous or pseu- Association Ethics Code (APA, 2002), the U.S. Department donymous identities online (Amber, 2000; Frankel & Siang, of Health and Human Service’s Protection of Human Subjects 1999). This ability to assume or fabricate identity complicates (DHHS, 2001), and the DHHS Health Insurance Portability matters regarding informed consent, correct identification of re- and Accountability (HIPAA) Act (DHHS, 2003). Additional search participants, and protection of underage subjects. There protection is provided by the Children’s Online Privacy Protec- are further ethical implications regarding the integrity of results tion (COPPA) Act (FTC, 1998) and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley if the gender, age, and other aspects of identity are uncertain Act (FTC, 1999). Collectively, these codes are intended to: or inaccurate. In the online venue, experimenters often cannot • Protect the privacy and confidentiality of individuals and be sure they are even dealing with a single individual, as typists their personally identifiable medical and financial records. could change without the experimenter's knowledge. A student • Ensure that individuals who give consent to have person- taking an online test or participating in a survey an online ex- ally identifiable information collected, transmitted, and stored periment could easily have a parent or another student nearby electronically have been fully informed. to
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