I am planning a study around a sensitive topic where I may personally be acquainted with certain participants. I am also embedded in the empirical context of the research, in the manner I could also be a potential participant of the study. We are a team of two researchers and are currently wondering how we can collect data from interviews and analyse them without knowing any identifiable information to the largest possible extent.
Thanks in advance!
From a GDPR (2018) perspective of ensuring confidentiality and anonymity, amongst the most common practices used by researchers would be:
1. Implementing password protection and controlled access to data files, for example ‘no access’, ‘read only’, ‘read and write’ or ‘administrator-only’ permission
2. Whenever possible avoid direct quotation
3. Use code names rather than participants' names
4. Use cross-interviews data instead of relying on a limited number of views on any given topic/concept (avoid selective quotations)
Dear Rya Ray ,
I think there may be a fundamental problem with your scenario as you appear to need to ask questions within a certain context but that context could expose your identity. I don't think you can have it both ways.
I agree with Peter Samuels . You have stated your positionality, but what is the positionality of your research partner. Perhaps it is better to just allow your partner to conduct the interviews and you could split the work by doing more work transcribing.
Thank you so much for your responses. It does seem tricky. We are trying to work something out where one of us sets up appointments and the other one interviews them, without knowing more than necessary details, such as contact information and time of the appointment. Later when transcripts are ready, we share them with each other, again without any way to trace the participant details. Let's see how this goes. :) John Marazita III Peter Samuels Juliana Chitac
No single technology is perfect, so the choice of technology is from an integrative perspective depending on the local context
To blind yourself to the identities, someone else would have to strip the identifiable information for you. One might have to consider masking, or changing/compositing locations, events, and people that will give away who the participants are.
Consider the ethics of participant/respondent. Are you responding yourself? Who is analyzing you? Are you conducting autoethnography? Examine the insider/outsider perspective, as the likelihood of you being a neutral observer would not be likely. You are moving beyond participant-observer, and your role is blurred by the power you hold. Strongly consider not including yourself, or if so, go down the path of analytical or evocative autoethnography. Also, you should be clear about your informed consent.
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