Abstract: This research note explores a limit in the principle of confidentiality, demonstrating how informants’ connected relationships can lead to impaired or diminished autonomy. Insiders may recognize what other insiders have said to a researcher in a private interview. Internal confidentiality is distinct from external confidentiality, which assures protection against identification by those who were not subjects of the research.
Tolich M (2004), ‘Internal confidentiality: When confidentiality assurances fail relational informants’, Qualitative Sociology, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 101–106
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FB%3AQUAS.0000015546.20441.4a
(Reference from the updated Booklet 37 of the Griffith University Research Ethics Manual. Perpetual licences are available for use by all researchers within an institution. Institutions have used the GUREM as the basis for producing their own research ethics manual, as a professional development resource and a teaching and learning materials for HDR candidates.)