This section offers guidelines that ensure at a minimum that the collection of data performed in a humanitarian setting is socially valuable, participants are treated fairly and with dignity, and the participants’ interests are protected.
Three basic principles of particular relevance to the ethics of data collection involving human participants are: respect, do no harm, and non-discrimination. These guidelines designed to be used when dealing with vulnerable populations such as internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees, who often lack effective protection from their state. As such, they have little legal recourse if their rights are violated as participants in information collection.