Abstract
This chapter offers practice-oriented guidance on ethics considerations frequently encountered during data collection on migration and information and communication technologies (ICTs). It addresses a challenge shared by researchers and migration professionals who deal with personally identifiable information (PII) in the course of their work: negotiating the ethical risks involved in collecting data on vulnerable persons in an information-rich, multichannel environment. After summarising fundamental legal and ethics issues, the chapter presents a guideline for identifying, assessing and mitigating ethical risks and designing sound data collection procedures and instruments. Particular attention is given to risks that have been flagged in official ethics guidelines, but not adequately explained, such as incidental findings, cross-border data transfers and the criterion of relevance to target communities.
Keywords
- Research ethics
- Legal compliance
- Data protection
- Vulnerable subjects
- Migration
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In Germany, for instance, the German Criminal Code Section 138 holds that individuals other than lawyers or medical/psychotherapeutic professionals who recklessly fail to report credible information about the planning or commission of a crime can incur a fine and imprisonment for a term of up to 1 year, or of up to 5 years in the case of certain serious offences.
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Funding
This chapter is grounded on procedures developed as part of the PERCEPTIONS project, funded by the European Union’s H2020 research and innovation programme, grant agreement number 833870. However, the opinions expressed herewith are solely of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the point of view of any EU institution.
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Edwards, J., Bertel, D. (2022). Ethics in Data Collection on Migration and ICT: A Guideline for Researchers and Practitioners. In: Akhgar, B., Hough, K.L., Abdel Samad, Y., Saskia Bayerl, P., Karakostas, A. (eds) Information and Communications Technology in Support of Migration. Security Informatics and Law Enforcement. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93266-4_18
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93266-4_18
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