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Online consent/assent authentication

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Browsing: Online consent/assent authentication

Sara Meeder

Posts: 20
posted

I am working out the logistics of online consent and assent for a study that involves downloading a smartphone app for data collection. One of the questions that keeps coming up is how we verify that parents aren't completing assent for their children and children aren't completing consent for their parents. The consent process will be fairly rigorous, involving videos, text and comprehension questions. Does anyone have suggestions for how to document that the appropriate people are completing consent and assent? Any advice would be welcome.

Camille Nebeker

Posts: 49
posted

Sara, I know who might have some thoughts on this and will check to see if he can chime in.

CN

Camille Nebeker

Posts: 49
posted in reply to camille nebeker

Sara,

John Wilbanks may be a good contact for your question... he is with Sage Bionetworks and has worked with the Apple Research Kit folks on phone based consent processes. URL http://sagebase.org/mobile-health/overview/

John is on our CORE Advisory Board as well :)

CN

John Wilbanks

Posts: 1
posted

Hi Sara, sorry to chime in late. I'm afraid all of our work has been in adult populations, with low-risk studies where we did not need to validate identity. So I do not have any good answers to your question. Worse, many (most? all?) of the proposed identity validation solutions I've seen would also fail in this context, as they depend on credentials that most kids are unlikely to have (drivers' license, bank account) or that can easily be compromised by an adult who desired to do so (mobile phone for two-factor authentication). So I'm not sure how this is doable without some in-person workflow step, I'd assume without the parent or guardian present...

Sara Meeder

Posts: 20
posted

Thanks for the input, John. We couldn't come up with an effective strategy for verification that wouldn't cause a greater confidentiality risk than the study warranted. I think we're stuck going with stern language notifying people that they should only consent for themselves, not others. Having a face-to-face component isn't feasible for this initial technology testing study, although we will be conducting consent and assent in person for our more involved study.

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