
A primer on data protection and why you should consider it sooner rather than later
Will your research project involve people? Will you be interviewing people, asking about their opinions or experiences, collecting health or social care data? Will you need to take their contact details in case you have follow-up questions and might you be recording other details about people, such as age, gender or the area they live? Will you, in short, be collecting any information relating to an identified or identifiable living individual?
If the answer is yes then you will be processing personal data as part of your project and you will need to consider the issue of data protection.