In evaluation, privacy is about participants having control over the information they share. Evaluators and researchers consider privacy to be about people, and confidentiality about data.

We consider privacy when designing data collection tools -- what information would people be comfortable sharing? How much personal information do we really need to collect in order to learn what we need to learn?

We think about privacy when conducting interviews or focus groups -- how we can ensure the discussion is not overheard? How are we making it safe for participants to share only what they are comfortable sharing?

It is evaluators' responsibility to ensure we protect privacy, autonomy and dignity in our processes.

See also: confidentiality

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