Traditional IRB risk assessment focuses on immediate harms to individual participants, but digital and behavioral research could now introduce diffuse, downstream, and group-level risks like algorithmic bias and stigmatization. Although 45 CFR 46.111(a)(2) tells us that risks involving the "possible long-range effects of applying knowledge gained in the research" are not in the IRB's purview for approval criteria, IRB professionals still encounter ethical questions about emerging forms of risk in data-intensive environments. In a world where content is posted with little expectation of privacy and companies consume large-scale personal data for business use, let's discuss ways that IRBs can think ethically about the new frontier of risk while remaining grounded in regulatory authority.
CIP®: 1.5 continuing education credit hours