Abstract
Human research ethics policies invariably hold confidentiality to be a core ethics principle. However, in North America over the past 50 years, numerous third parties—including police, grand juries, Congressional committees, coroners and corporations—have used various lawful mechanisms, such as subpoenas or search warrants, to attempt to gain access to confidential research information. The failure to legislate confidentiality protection for research participants in Canada may reflect the fact that there have been relatively few lawful threats to research confidentiality. However, the legal landscape has changed significantly over the past seven years; from 2012 to 2018, there were six new third-party party attempts to access confidential research information in criminal, civil and coroners’ courts. One of these challenges involved assisted suicide researcher Russel Ogden. In May 2014, the BC Coroner served Ogden, then a Kwantlen faculty member, a summons to interview him under oath concerning the death in 2012 of one of his research participants. Because the Coroner’s examination could potentially compromise Ogden’s promise of research confidentiality, he requested that Kwantlen provide legal support. When Kwantlen declined to provide that support, a third party made a formal complaint to the Secretariat on Responsible Conduct in Research concerning Kwantlen’s conduct. The ensuing article describes the Secretariat response to that complaint. The article suggests that, rather than leaving the defence of research confidentiality in the courtroom to individual research institutions, the Granting Councils should establish a fund to which universities contribute to defend research confidentiality against any lawful challenge.
Highlights
Every human research ethics policy I have ever seen acknowledges the indispensable importance of confidentiality to research with humans, especially when it involves illegal or disreputable conduct or physical and psychological health
In the event that a researcher should experience a lawful challenge to research confidentiality, the funding agencies assert that: “Institutions shall support their researchers in maintaining promises of confidentiality.” (CIHR, Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), 2014: Article 5.1)
The ensuing testimony of both Simon Fraser University (SFU)’s President and Vice-President Research revealed that they based their decision to abandon Ogden on considerations of liability and impression management—they did not want anyone to perceive SFU as supporting assisted suicide—rather than the ethical imperative of maintaining the anonymity of his research participants
Summary
Every human research ethics policy I have ever seen acknowledges the indispensable importance of confidentiality to research with humans, especially when it involves illegal or disreputable conduct or physical and psychological health. In North America over the past 50 years, numerous third parties—including police, grand juries, Congressional committees, coroners and corporations—have used various lawful mechanisms, such as subpoenas or search warrants, to attempt to gain access to confidential research information. In so doing, they have mounted a substantial threat to the academic freedom of researchers to conduct independent research. They have mounted a substantial threat to the academic freedom of researchers to conduct independent research Such has been the threat in the U.S, where there have been dozens of such challenges to research confidentiality, that state and federal legislators have enacted various shield laws to protect confidential research information from compelled disclosure. The Councils would use this fund to defend research confidentiality against any potential lawful challenge
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
