Original title: (Un)informed Consent: To What Degree are Research Participants 'Informed' by Common Consent Procedures in Psychology under EU Data Protection Law?
Luisa Jansen, Annika I. Külpmann, Dara Hallinan, Franziska Boehm +1 · September 2026
When you join a psychology study, you sign a consent form. This form should clearly explain what data researchers collect and what rights you have. European Union privacy law demands this so your consent is truly informed. If researchers fail to do this, the legitimacy of their work is undermined. To see if studies obey the rules, researchers gathered real consent documents from psychology papers published between 2019 and 2021. They examined the papers and compared the information promised on each form against the data the scientists actually collected in their experiments. They found that every single consent form failed to include essential information. The forms left out vital details about who controlled the data, what information was collected, and participants' legal rights. This failure happened even in studies that gathered sensitive personal details. The authors outline paths to help scientists protect privacy while still sharing data.
Imagine signing a contract to rent an apartment. The landlord hands you a form that says you agree to pay rent, but it doesn't mention the exact amount, when it's due, or your rights if something breaks. You sign it, thinking you know the basics, but later you find out you agreed to much more than you thought. In this paper, consent forms for psychology studies similarly leave out crucial details like what data is collected and participants' legal rights, so participants cannot truly know what they are consenting to.
When participants sign consent forms that omit key details, they cannot make truly informed decisions about their data. This undermines both ethical standards and legal compliance under EU law. Researchers risk invalidating their studies and violating participants' rights.
The study is based on a sample of 101 consent forms from studies published 2019-2021, which may not represent all psychological research. The analysis focuses on compliance with GDPR, not on whether participants actually understood the forms. The findings show lack of information but do not measure the impact on participant understanding or research validity.
Ask anything about this paper. Answers come from its abstract, and say so when the abstract doesn't cover your question.
(Un)informed Consent: To What Degree are Research Participants 'Informed' by Common Consent Procedures in Psychology under EU Data Protection Law? — Luisa Jansen, Annika I. Külpmann, Dara Hallinan et al. — PsyArXiv — doi:10.31234/osf.io/gv6d7_v1
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper. This is a preprint, so it hasn't necessarily been peer reviewed.