Techno-Research and Cyber-Ethics: Challenges for Ethics Committees

The development of the internet and other communications technologies over the past decade have seen a corresponding growth in the development and use of technologically-based research methodologies. This paper explores issues arising from the new technology which impact on ethics committees and how these might be addressed. Whilst some ethical issues are comparable in both online and offline worlds there are some elements of the techno-research which require extra consideration. Although ethics guidelines can be found on the worldwide web the onus remains upon techno-researchers and ethics committee members to collaborate in deciding upon the ethical dilemmas and the rigour of proposed techno-research solutions.