Using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, blogs, chat rooms, online forums, or other social networking sites for your research? How about Zoom or a similar platform? Or perhaps a mobile app for data collection? Online research is popular right now but it’s not always clear when to seek permissions or what to disclose to participants. The IRB is here to help!
Guidelines for Online Research
Remember, you can always reach out to hsc@research.ucsb.edu with questions.
Recruitment: Research recruitment may or may not be allowed in online forums and sites. It is the researcher’s responsibility to check with site moderators and get permissions if needed. Tip: Including a note confirming you will do this in your IRB submission is helpful and will save HSC from asking you for this confirmation later in the review process.
Publicly available vs private information: If a site requires users to create an account and a log in/password, the IRB considers this to be private and not publicly available information. This means researchers would need consent to observe and/or collect data from such participants. In cases where an individual’s information is intended for the general public, is not protected by a password or login, the site policy does not prohibit the direct quotation of material from the site (or prohibit research more generally), and the research is not greater than minimal risk, then consent may not be required.
Privacy Statements & Terms of Service: It is the researcher’s responsibility to check the privacy statement and terms of service of any site or app being used for research purposes. For example:
- Under Facebook’s privacy policy, consent must be obtained for the use of any data from a Facebook user’s page.
- Under Zoom’s terms, Zoom may have access to any audio or video recorded on its platform. Participants should be informed of this in the consent process. See our Zoom FAQ for more information here.
- Under MTurk’s policy you cannot ask workers for identifiable data such as their name or email address
Include in the Informed consent process:
- Whether agreement to Terms of Service is required for the research activity
- What if any access the app/third-party has to participant's data
Sensitive topics: Data collection about illegal behaviors, sensitive health-related issues, and/or including minors requires additional safeguards for privacy/confidentiality. Platforms with access to participants’ data under their terms/policies should be avoided. Consider open-source tools with end-to-end encryption for collecting sensitive data.
- Tip: If you want a survey to be anonymous, but you need to collect email address for payment purposes, consider asking for email address via a link to a separate survey/Google Form this way it is not attached to the survey data itself.
Data storage: UCSB Box and UCSB Google Drive are both secure storage options. It is recommended that any data collected from human subjects over computer networks be transmitted in encrypted format. For more than minimal risk studies with sensitive datasets, campus IT security can assist with a data security plan: ets-ciso@ucsb.edu. UCSB IT general recommendations to keep your personal device secure include:
- Enable encryption if possible
- Turn on the firewall for your device
- Keep all applications and the operating system up to date
Children: Online research with children is subject to Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in addition to human subjects regulations. Researchers are prohibited from collecting personal information from a child without posting notices about how the information will be used and without getting verifiable (likely written) parental permission.