reasonable security with email interviewing research participants
Sorry if this is a double, I wasn't sure if it went through! ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Monica Barratt <monbarratt@gmail.com> Date: 28-Mar-2007 10:51 Subject: Re: [Air-l] FW: reasonable security with email interviewing research participants To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Cc: bodhi@nznet.gen.nz, Sarah Stewart <sarahs@tekotago.ac.nz> Hi Catherine, Sarah and the AoIR List I am a PhD Candidate (at the National Drug Research Institute at Curtin University (Perth), living in Melbourne, Australia - see http://db.ndri.curtin.edu.au/staff.asp?persid=650). My project examines online 'party drug' discussion, using a combination of observation, online surveys and online interviews. The issue of how to secure online interviews is something I've been grappling with recently too. My issues are a bit different to yours but I thought it might be good to discuss them on this list, should other researchers be able to comment on their own experiences with online interview security. In the case of my project, discussion of the topic matter has the potential to incriminate the interviewee, if they were to talk openly about their own illegal drug-related behaviours without concealing their identity or without encrypting the content. Ethics approval was granted for me to set up a process whereby communication was encrypted or the participant's identity was adequately concealed. Obviously both anonymity and encryption would be the best option, legally and ethically. Originally I was going to offer email and/or instant messaging as a platform for the online interviews, and to investigate encryption for both. This became quite complex, and I have now settled for using only instant messaging. The population I will be interviewing will generally be familiar with IM so this was seen as a good way cutting down the information required by interested participants to set up the process. I have put together an Encryption Guide to assist participants in setting up secure IM to use both while completing my interview and within their normal IM use. I have consulted with some of the academics who created the open source IM encryption software Off-the-record, and have (hopefully) skilled myself up enough to assist interviewees in setting things up. I will begin interviewing in June/July. I have tried to forsee problems, such as people not being prepared to spend time sorting out encryption, which may just not be a priority for them or may be beyond their computer literacy. The Guide offers easier (less secure but still ethically sound) options to protect the participant's identity. I am aware that there are options for encrypted online chat embedded in webpages which mean the participant would not need to download anything - I believe SPSS has such a package but it is quite expensive. One of my guiding principles throughout this project is to interact with participants and to give back knowledge and skills that may be useful to them - so providing this information that they can use outside of the research project is in fact part of the methodology. If anyone on the AoIR list has experience in this area and has the time to review my Encryption Guide, I'd be most grateful for comments and suggests on this draft. Also, you can use the guide to set up encryption for your own IM use, and you are welcome to test your set-up with me anytime (this will help prepare me for the interviewees!). You can download it from here: http://www.savefile.com/files/585220 Thanks monica Monica Barratt PhD Student National Drug Research Institute
CALL FOR PAPERS The Third Asia-Pacific Computing and Philosophy Conference November 2-4, 2007 Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand Website: http://www.stc.arts.chula.ac.th/APCAP2007/ The Third Asia-Pacific Computing and Philosophy Conference will again take place at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand. The conference is being held in succession to the successful Second Asia- Pacific Conference in January 2005 (www.stc.arts.chula.ac.th/CAP/AP- CAP.html). AP-CAP2007 is part of the series of conferences organized by the International Association for Computing and Philosophy (www.ia- cap.org). The conferences have been in held in various regions of the world. As of now there are three major regions where these conferences are held, namely in North America (NA-CAP), Europe (ECAP) and Asia- Pacific. As with the other CAP conferences, AP-CAP2007 will also deal with all aspects of the "computational turn" that is occurring through the interaction of the disciplines of philosophy and computing. And in continuation from the second conference, papers dealing with 'cultural' aspects of computing and philosophy would be specially emphasized, though papers in other areas will of course be welcome. The conference is interdisciplinary: We invite papers from philosophy, computer science, social science and related disciplines. CONFERENCE VENUE The conference will be held within the campus of Chulalongkorn University. SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS Please send an extended abstract of not more than 1,000 words to Dr. Soraj Hongladarom. Files in .DOC, .RTF, .TXT, or .PDF formats are acceptable. Deadline for submission: 30 September 2007. Authors will be notified of the committee's decision before October 15th. PhD and master students are especially encouraged to submit. Student speakers will not have to pay a conference fee. Registration details will be posted on the website very soon. CONTACT Dr. Soraj Hongladarom, Center for Ethics of Science and Technology, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand Tel. +66(0)2218-4756; Fax +66(0)2218-4755 Email: hsoraj@chula.ac.th
CALL FOR PAPERS The Third Asia-Pacific Computing and Philosophy Conference November 2-4, 2007 Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand Website: http://www.stc.arts.chula.ac.th/APCAP2007/ The Third Asia-Pacific Computing and Philosophy Conference will again take place at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand. The conference is being held in succession to the successful Second Asia- Pacific Conference in January 2005 (www.stc.arts.chula.ac.th/CAP/AP- CAP.html). AP-CAP2007 is part of the series of conferences organized by the International Association for Computing and Philosophy (www.ia- cap.org). The conferences have been in held in various regions of the world. As of now there are three major regions where these conferences are held, namely in North America (NA-CAP), Europe (ECAP) and Asia- Pacific. As with the other CAP conferences, AP-CAP2007 will also deal with all aspects of the "computational turn" that is occurring through the interaction of the disciplines of philosophy and computing. And in continuation from the second conference, papers dealing with 'cultural' aspects of computing and philosophy would be specially emphasized, though papers in other areas will of course be welcome. The conference is interdisciplinary: We invite papers from philosophy, computer science, social science and related disciplines. CONFERENCE VENUE The conference will be held within the campus of Chulalongkorn University. SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS Please send an extended abstract of not more than 1,000 words to Dr. Soraj Hongladarom. Files in .DOC, .RTF, .TXT, or .PDF formats are acceptable. Deadline for submission: 30 September 2007. Authors will be notified of the committee's decision before October 15th. PhD and master students are especially encouraged to submit. Student speakers will not have to pay a conference fee. Registration details will be posted on the website very soon. CONTACT Dr. Soraj Hongladarom, Center for Ethics of Science and Technology, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand Tel. +66(0)2218-4756; Fax +66(0)2218-4755 Email: hsoraj@chula.ac.th
In the case of my project, discussion of the topic matter has the potential to incriminate the interviewee, if they were to talk openly about their own illegal drug-related behaviours without concealing their identity or without encrypting the content. Ethics approval was granted for me to set up a process whereby communication was encrypted or the participant's identity was adequately concealed. Obviously both anonymity and encryption would be the best option, legally and ethically.
You correctly point out that encryption does not ensure anonymity in the strongest sense; I think this is important to keep in the forefront.
I have put together an Encryption Guide to assist participants in setting up secure IM to use both while completing my interview and within their normal IM use. I have consulted with some of the academics who created the open source IM encryption software Off-the-record, and have (hopefully) skilled myself up enough to assist interviewees in setting things up.
In terms of secure IM, using OTR seems like a good choice, in that it moves the encryption/decryption step away from some intermediary service provider and onto the computers of the participants/researchers. It probably would be equally reasonable to implement any secure IM strategy that relied on public key cryptography - whether PGP/GnuPG/OpenPGP or server- and client-side SSL certificates.
I will begin interviewing in June/July. I have tried to forsee problems, such as people not being prepared to spend time sorting out encryption, which may just not be a priority for them or may be beyond their computer literacy.
People are notoriously unwilling to make simple changes to their workflow that better protect them or their confidentiality (or even their incomes!) from 3rd-party observation or interference.
If anyone on the AoIR list has experience in this area and has the time to review my Encryption Guide, I'd be most grateful for comments and suggests on this draft. Also, you can use the guide to set up encryption for your own IM use, and you are welcome to test your set-up with me anytime (this will help prepare me for the interviewees!). You can download it from here: http://www.savefile.com/files/585220
Your guide looks fairly straightforward; remember, though, that you may have interviewees who have a serious aversion to our computer jargon. ;) With regard to email encryption - the "mixmaster" suite of anonymous remailer tools are pretty good, and useful in cases such as these. [These are the same flavor of tools (different generation, of course) that were once used to run the (fairly infamous) anon.penet.fi remailer service.] --elijah
participants (4)
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elw＠stderr.org -
Monica Barratt -
Philip Wazdatskey -
Soraj Hongladarom