Information Provision for Informed Consent Procedures in Psychological Research under the GDPR: A Practical Guide

Abstract

Psychological research often involves the collection and processing of personal data from human research participants, and there is a norm that informed consent should be obtained before such research can go ahead. The European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) applies, in principle, to psychological research. It elaborates a range of conditions concerning the forms of information which should be communicated to research participants whenever personal data are collected from them, in order that they might be considered to be ‘informed’. There is reason to believe, however, that the information required by the GDPR may not always be provided in consent materials. This may – at least in part – be due to the fact that psychological researchers are not aware of the exact requirements. This tutorial thus aims to provide general practical guidance to psychological researchers allowing them to understand which forms of information must be provided to research subjects in consent materials according to the GDPR.

(Un)informed consent in Psychological Research: An empirical study on consent in psychological research and the GDPR

“…18 Accordingly, to address the issues encountered, we feel a productive way forward would be the provision of general practical guidance concerning the content of information to be provided to research subjects as mandated by the GDPR, aimed at helping psychological researchers in designing consent procedures. In light of this observation, we attempted to put such guidance togetherwhich has now been published and is available to download open access (Hallinan et. al., forthcoming 2023).…”