Invited perspective on Research Ethics in Response to “The Right to Read Without Being Read: Research Ethics in the Study of Digital Reading Behaviour”

Abstract

This invited perspective is a response to the position paper “The Right to Read Without Being Read: Research Ethics in the Study of Digital Reading Behaviour”. From the point of view of the researcher behind one of the case studies discussed in the position paper, this paper highlights three perspectives on research ethics: 1) the potential negative effects for individuals of studying book streaming data as in the project design are minimal, and ethics have been discussed continuously in the project; 2) the question whether this kind of data is to be considered sensitive data or not is not simple, and it is important to restrict this label to data that is indeed sensitive; and 3) questions concerning privacy evoked by this kind of reader data are recurrently addressed in the research by the author.