Confidentiality Procedures

The primary risk to subjects in research in the social and behavioral sciences in the humanities is an inadvertent disclosure of data when:

The information you collect from or about your subjects is identifiable, either directly or indirectly, and
Disclosure of the information could harm research participants. Possible harms range from a damaged reputation to criminal prosecution for engaging in illegal activities.

Confidentiality refers to the agreements you make with subjects about how you will collect, store, and use the information they share with you.

This guide offers sample text for describing your confidentiality procedures to your research subjects based on four general scenarios. Do not use the samples uncritically because they may not be right for your study.

Five general scenarios (click the arrow to read the full text):

1. You will not collect any direct identifiers, such as names or email

addresses, and no information that would allow someone to deduce

your subjects' identities.

What to do:

Make it clear to your subjects that you are not collecting identifiable information.

How to talk about it:

Your privacy is important to me. Therefore, I will not collect your names or any identifying information about you.
I will not ask you for your name.
I will write only your initials, not your name, on the notes from the interview. Neither your name nor your initials will be used is the presentation of this research to others, so no one here in your community, or elsewhere, will know what you said.
If you participate, I will not write down or record your name. I will write down your age range decade, your sex, your job, and your economic means, unless your job is unusual in the village, and then I will only write down which industry you work in. For example, you might identify yourself as a "tourism industry worker," or a "merchant."
To ensure confidentiality, no information will be collected that can link you back to your questionnaire. This means that we will be unable to identify your questionnaires or return them to you.

3. The information you collect is identifiable, but identifying subjects

is a central feature of your research method, such as oral history, or

you are interviewing public figures or acknowledged experts in your

field of inquiry.

What to do:

Describe your proposals for identifying your subjects and any options you plan to provide for subjects such as: 1) correcting or amending transcripts of the interview, 2) asking that portions of the interview be off the record, or 3) requesting that they not be identified. Also tell subjects what you plan to do with the identifiable information, such as write an article, archive the material for others to use, or post the material on the Internet. (See the Guide: Release Forms)

How to talk about it:

I plan to use your name in my report and attribute quotations to you. Please let me know if you would you like any of your comments to be off the record.
I will archive the recording of our interview in the Duke Library where it will be available for others to use for research and educational purposes. I would also like to incorporate portions of the interview in a documentary film about (this topic).
I will be using our interview to write a paper on this topic and I plan on using your name and what you tell me in our interview in this paper. It is not essential to have your name, your story is much more important to me, so please don't feel that my research will be damaged in any way if you prefer that I don't use your name.

4. You are collecting data in a situation in which you cannot offer

confidentiality, such as focus group discussion.

What to do:

Explain that you cannot offer confidentiality, particularly if the topic of discussion is sensitive.

How to say it:

Every effort will be made to protect your identity as a participant in the study. You will not be identified in any report or publication^* of this study or its results. Even though we will emphasize to all participants in the study that comments made during the focus group sessions should be kept confidential, it is possible that participants may repeat comments outside the group at some point in the future. Therefore, we encourage you to be open as you can, but remain aware of our limits in protecting confidentiality.
I won't use your name in any of my notes or reports that I write. I will ask everyone not to repeat what they hear in this group. However, you should think about what you decide to share with the group if there is something you want to be private.

5. The data you collect are identifiable and could harm your

research subjects if inadvertently disclosed.

What to do:

Design a procedure to protect the data. Ask yourself the questions listed below to guide you in developing confidentiality procedures for identifiable potentially harmful information. Samples are provided at different comprehension levels to give you a sense of how to talk with and write for different subject populations.

Note: It is not sufficient just to tell participants that identifying information they provide will be kept in confidence. You have to explain how it will be done.

1. Do I need to collect email addresses, physical addresses, or other identifiable information so that I can keep a record of people who have participated in my study? If so, can I design a procedure that will allow me to know who participated in my study, without connecting identifiers to their responses?

Alternatively, do I need to keep the data temporarily identifiable?

I will keep your email address so that I can send you a reminder notice if you haven't completed the survey. The only information connected to your email address will be whether or not you completed the survey, not your answers to the survey.
I will keep your contact information with your interview responses in case I have additional questions before I leave the country. I will destroy that contact information as soon as an interview is complete. My field notes will be in a password protected file on my laptop computer.

2. Do I need to link sensitive data, for example from pre- and post- intervention questionnaires? If so what procedures could I use to make sure that no one other than the research staff can link individuals with their responses? Should I use a key to link individuals' names to an identifying number that I put on the questionnaires and then lock the key in a safe place (physically or electronically). Or should I ask participants to create their own unique identifiers to put on their questionnaires, so that I will not be able to link names with identifiers?

You will be assigned an ID number and we will temporarily link this ID number with your name so that when you come back for the second session, we can mark the creativity measure with the same number. After you have finished or stopped participating, we will destroy the key that links your name to the data you provide. We will simply have data with ID numbers and there will be no way to know who provided which sets of data. Although your name will be collected on this consent form, it will be kept in a separate place from the data.
We are going to give everyone in the study a number. I will have a sheet of paper that links your name to your special number. I will put your number, but not your name, on the notes that I take as we talk and I will put the same number on the pictures you draw for me. After the study I will destroy the paper that links your name and your number. That way I will just have pictures and words with no names on them. Even though I will know who you are, I won't use your names when I write my report.

3. If my participants could be indirectly identified with relative ease because I plan to conduct research in a small community or with a small number of subjects who are well-known in some way, will it be necessary to disguise the identity of my subjects by providing misleading identifiers? Will I need to disguise the identity of the community in which I conduct the research?

I will use pseudonyms and misleading information when preparing reports or articles about the research.
I will use false names when writing reports about this study. I will also make up some information about you so no one will be able to guess who you really are.

4. Am I collecting identifiable information that might be subject to subpoena by a court of law, such as information about illegal activities or sexual orientation? (If so, you will need to apply for a Certificate of Confidentiality so you will not be compelled to disclose your data.)

5. Do I plan to audio-record interviews? If so, will I erase the tapes after I have made a transcript or will I archive the tapes for use by others?

With your permission, I would like to tape this interview so that I can make an accurate transcript. The tape will be destroyed as soon as the transcript is completed.
If it is OK with you, I would like to tape this interview so that I can write down what you said without mistakes. Once I have made my notes, I will erase the tapes.
With your permission, I would like to tape this interview because I think that your story will be valuable for other researchers interested in this topic.

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