Ethical implications of lifestyle monitoring data in ageing research

Abstract

Lifestyle monitoring systems, intelligent proactive systems incorporating passive monitoring capabilities and allowing contemporaneous remote access to data promise potential benefits to service providers, service users and their carers and families and those engaged in ageing research. Research to date has focused primarily on technical issues, generally at the expense of detailed consideration of the ethical issues raised by these systems. The paper, which is based on a literature review, identifies ethical issues and questions for researchers around: informed consent; working with people who are cognitively impaired; surveillance and the passivity of monitoring; processes of care and using and linking lifestyle monitoring data. It concludes by emphasizing the importance of all parties exploring and discussing the tradeoff between potential benefits to multiple stakeholder groups and actual costs to the individual.