Anticipating Law: Research Methods, Ethics, and the Law of Privilege

Our ethical obligation to protect the research confidentiality of individual participants is challenged when third parties use subpoenas in the context of criminal proceedings and civil litigation in an effort to order the production of confidential information. This paper discusses strategies resea...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inSociological methodology Vol. 32; no. 1; pp. 1 - 17
Main Authors Palys, Ted, Lowman, John
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Boston, USA and Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishers 01.01.2002
Blackwell Publishing, Inc
American Sociological Association
Subjects
Academic freedom
Common law
Confidentiality
Contempt of court
Criminal offences
Criminal Proceedings
Criminology
Drug abuse
Ethics
Federal Rules of Evidence
Grand juries
Information legislation
Journalism
Law
Legal Cases
Legislation
Litigation
Medical research
Participants
Patient confidentiality
Research design
Research Ethics
Research methodology
Research methods
Research Subjects
Research universities
Researcher Subject Relations
Researchers
Science
Social research
Social Science Research
Social sciences
Social sciences research
Sociological methodology
Sociology
State courts
State laws
Subpoenas
Symposium on Data Confidentiality and the Law
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Summary:Our ethical obligation to protect the research confidentiality of individual participants is challenged when third parties use subpoenas in the context of criminal proceedings and civil litigation in an effort to order the production of confidential information. This paper discusses strategies researchers may employ in order to maximize their legal ability to maintain confidentiality in spite of those challenges. Use of existing statutory protections is the first choice, but these are available for only a subset of research related to health and criminal justice issues. In situations where statutory protections are not available, the Wigmore criteria may act as a guide for the design of research that maximizes researchers' ability to protect research participants by advancing a case-by-case claim for researcher-participant privilege. We discuss the legal basis for this conclusion and outline procedures that may be used to further strengthen confidentiality protections.
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ISSN:0081-1750
1467-9531
DOI:10.1111/1467-9531.00107