Ethical research and consent

As a government department, we have a duty to protect the dignity, privacy and safety of our research participants and our user researchers.

Transparency and informed consent

We get informed consent from everyone who takes part in research, whether it’s online, paper or verbal. This includes external participants (service users), internal participants (Home Office staff), and other professionals who work with the Home Office to deliver public services. We are fully transparent with our users when they take part in our research. This means that we explain everything that is involved in the research and what we need from them.

Privacy, confidentiality and data protection

All of our user researchers are fully trained on privacy, confidentiality and data protection. If you are a user researcher and want to learn more about the training we offer, take a look at our UCD community hub on the Home Office intranet.

Vulnerable participants and risks to user researchers

If you are a user researcher, you must understand how to make a submission to our internal ethics board. Submissions should be made for research that involves vulnerable participants or poses a risk to the researcher. That page contains information on how we describe vulnerable participants and what constitutes a risk to a researcher.