Anonymity and confidentiality
Introduction
Our paramount concern in everything we do will be to respect the anonymity and confidentiality of participants in the research, as well as the commercial confidentiality of the firms for which they work.
If you agree to take part in this study, we guarantee that what you tell us will not be attributed to you or to your organisation in anything we write or say. We will also take great care not to disclose in any way any incidental details that might make you or your organisation identifiable. Our general practice is to audio-record and transcribe interviews, but only if those to whom we speak agree to this. Notes and recordings will never be made public or shared with those not part of the research team, and electronic records will be encrypted and kept only in secure computer systems. We will not seek out any commercially confidential information, and if we inadvertently learn any, we will take the utmost care not to disclose it.
The research team has a great deal of experience in conducting research under these conditions of confidentiality. Its leader, Donald MacKenzie, has nearly forty years of experience of research of this kind, including over 600 interviews, some on topics far more sensitive than those we are exploring here (in particular, the design of nuclear weapons systems). At no point in this research has confidentiality ever been breached, and if you choose to participate in this study you can be confident that that will continue to be the case here. We have an informed Consent and Confidentiality Form, which we will happily sign if you wish (although you may simply give us your consent verbally if you prefer). The guarantees given in this form (on anonymity, confidentiality and some other important matters) will hold equally if you give your consent verbally.