You (a research assistant) are administering an electronic survey

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You (a research assistant) are administering an electronic survey about chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy to Edith, a participant receiving chemotherapy, in the infusion suite. The survey is administered using software on a iPad. You hand Edith the iPad and while she is clicking around to answer the survey, she accidentally navigates to the main page of the survey administration software, revealing the first and last names of everyone on the study. This is not the first time that a data privacy incident has occurred during the conduct of this study.

Discussion Questions

1. What security steps could you take in the future to prevent participants from navigating to the home page of the survey administration software when they complete the survey on the iPad? 

2. If you were the PI of this study, how would you explain to your research assistant the importance of data privacy/security?

3. If you were the PI of this study, should you report this incident to the IRB? Why or why not? 

4. In an alternate scenario, when you approach Edith to administer the survey, Edith says that she does not remember being apart of a research study. How would you respond in this situation? Should you still administer the survey?