Covert research carries ethical risks, funding body warns

Health Research Council of New Zealand says ethics committees must clarify role of “co-researchers”

A New Zealand research project stepped “outside the boundaries of ethics approval” when covert research moved from online observation to in-person interactions, a Health Research Council report has said.

The unnamed project involved covert research into “a group with certain political and ideological views”, the HRC said. The team included an academic at a university and a “co-researcher”—a former student of the academic who was now working in journalism.