Administrative Supplement to P41EB028242 award (The mDOT Center): WristPrint: Bioethical Policy Implications of the Emerging Re-identifiability Risks from Wrist-worn Activity Data.

NIH RePORTER · NIH · P41 · $144,998 · view on reporter.nih.gov ↗

Abstract

Administrative Supplement to P41EB028242 award (The mDOT Center): WristPrint: Bioethical Policy Implications of the Emerging Re-identifiability Risks from Wrist-worn Activity Data. Principal Investigator: Santosh Kumar, PhD Abstract/Project Summary: Raw motion data obtained from wrist-worn sensors (e.g., activity trackers, smartwatches) consists of data that, to date, have been considered de-identified for the purposes of data sharing, informed consent, and ethical considerations of human subjects research. Emerging research indicates that such data may re-identify a specific person with only hours to a day’s worth of collected data. With the growing impetus for more open data sharing of de-identified study data, both as a matter of open science policy from publicly funded research and as a matter of necessity to advance and refine artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) approaches, this discovery of re-identifiability of wrist-worn motion data has considerable implications on the privacy, confidentiality, rights, and welfare of human research participants who participate in the ever-growing numbers of research studies involving these wearable devices. This project will develop and disseminate, at a much faster capacity than via the dissemination of research as it is traditionally published, the risk characterizations and mitigation strategies among the scientific community regarding the bioethics risks embedded in these types of data. The educational and dissemination strategies from this project will help ensure that research of this type can continue while being proactive to prevent major violations of trust and confidentiality from the public and among the research community, should these re-identification risks begin to bear real harm.

Key facts

NIH application ID
11064358
Project number
3P41EB028242-04S1
Recipient
UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS
Principal Investigator
Santosh Kumar
Activity code
P41
Funding institute
NIH
Fiscal year
2024
Award amount
$144,998
Award type
3
Project period
2020-07-15 → 2025-11-30