The Role of Consent Form Design Under GDPR: A Survey Experiment

Abstract

The present research note examines how design features of consent forms impact response rates, privacy concerns, and respondents’ knowledge of their rights. The 2018 implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation, also known as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), has triggered widespread concern in the scientific community across the European Union. The concern is that the GDPR requirements for the processing of personal data may introduce severe limitations on certain types of research. A key requirement of the GDPR is that researchers must obtain informed consent from individuals whose personal data will be processed as part of the research. Consent must be freely given, specific, informed, unambiguous, and given actively via a clear affirmative action. However, in practice, there is a wide variation in the interpretation and implementation of the GDPR. Therefore, this study aims to investigate how to ensure informed consent without compromising the needs of academic research. To do so, we fielded a survey experiment with a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects design, varying key dimensions of the survey consent form. The results of this study document the advantages of using condensed information and in-text legal references (as opposed to a hyperlink).