An Online Consent Maturity Model: Moving from Acceptable Use towards Ethical Practice

Abstract

The particular characteristics associated with qualitative longitudinal research in the disciplines of psychology and social science have prompted the development of informed consent. There are analogies between these characteristics and the collection and analysis of data in online settings. How and why informed consent has developed in qualitative longitudinal research, both theoretically and practically, can provide a useful resource for considering what informed consent means in online settings. Building on this analogy, criteria are proposed that can be used to provide an ethical judgement on consent practices in an online data handling activity, and form the basis for a consent maturity model. It is argued that if we are to learn from from the history of informed consent in qualitative longitudinal research, then we should strive for an Ethics of Virtue approach to informed consent online, the highest level of maturity.