Resources are available to help clarify privacy considerations for research, and help ensure ethical, regulatory and institutional requirements are met, as well as the requirements of funders.
Research privacy reviews are conducted, when necessary, at the same time as the Research Ethics Board (REB) review. This privacy review is included with your other ethics documents on
RISe, UBC's online ethics application submission system. There is no additional paperwork or form to fill out. Research Privacy can see everything on RISe. This process is intended to streamline the privacy review process and reduce bureaucracy while also ensuring that research conducted at PHSA is carefully reviewed for privacy considerations.
Research privacy reviews are guided by the BC Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA), the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS 2), and other ethics principles, guidance documents and regulations.
In some cases, your REB will notify Research Privacy to determine if a privacy review is required. However, you are also welcome to send your study to Research Privacy before it is submitted to the REB if you think you might need a privacy review or if you need some privacy-related advice. Research Privacy is also available to consult on and support new projects and initiatives.
Not all research studies need a privacy review
Only studies that use or link personal information or have significant privacy concerns are reviewed by Research Privacy. When reviewing studies that involve data sharing, it is important that you have a plan to manage the data safely throughout the lifecycle of your research study.
We recently conducted a survey to determine how we can meet your needs and prioritize areas of service that will benefit you the most. Over 200 people from the PHSA research community responded to the survey. Most said that priority areas included “better and more efficient data access within PHSA and streamlining research compliance at PHSA and reducing bureaucracy.” So we will continue to work hard on these topic areas. A summary of survey findings can be found here.
