Protect Participants' Privacy and Personal Information

If you collect personal information about participants, you have a responsibility to protect that information and keep it private. For example, if you must collect information such as participants' Social Security number because your accounting department asks for it, ensure that it is only used for that purpose.

Don't include it in materials distributed to others, such as a schedule of sessions or the final report. Do tell participants why you are collecting the personal information and what you are going to do with it. You should also tell them how long you are going to keep it.

Keep the identities of your participants anonymous. During the sessions, try to minimize how much you say their names, especially if the session is being recorded (and even more if the recordings will go into highlights videos that will be seen widely in your company). Try to strike a balance between being personable during the time participants are with you and protecting their privacy later.

Don t use names to laoei recordings or rues. iou win neeu pui naura session schedules to ensure that the right people show up and that they match the selection criteria. However, you should never use names — not even just first names — in reports. Refer to the participants by some other identifier, such as Ul, U2, etc. (for user one, user two, etc.) or PI, P2, and so on (for participant one, participant two, etc.).

Absolutely do not share video or audio recordings of participants for any reason other than the reasons that participants agreed to. You should have participants sign recording permissions that spell out that you are using the recordings onlv for data analysis and internal reports. Once the sessions are complete, store the recordings securely, either on media that can be locked away or digitally protected with passwords.