This policy explains JLPCS’s expectations for ethical approval, informed consent, participant protection, privacy, confidentiality, data protection, and responsible reporting in research involving human participants or human-related data.

The purpose of this policy is to protect participants, safeguard personal and sensitive information, promote transparent reporting, and maintain the integrity of published research.

本政策说明 JLPCS 对涉及人类受试者或人类相关数据研究的伦理审批、知情同意、受试者保护、隐私、保密、数据保护和负责任报告的要求。本政策旨在保护研究参与者，维护个人与敏感信息安全，促进透明报告，并保障已发表研究的可信度。

This policy applies to empirical, qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, legal-empirical, psychological, communication, digital platform, institutional, archival, and interdisciplinary research involving human participants or human-related data.

Research covered by this policy may include:

• Interviews, focus groups, oral histories, ethnography, or participant observation;
• Surveys, questionnaires, experiments, psychological tests, behavioral tasks, or intervention studies;
• Studies involving minors, students, employees, patients, vulnerable groups, legal clients, victims, witnesses, or institutional populations;
• Analysis of personal data, sensitive data, institutional records, case files, administrative records, or communication records;
• Online research involving social media, digital platforms, public comments, online communities, recommender systems, user-generated content, or platform traces;
• Research using audio, video, images, screenshots, transcripts, biometric data, location data, or identifiable quotations;
• Secondary analysis of datasets containing personal, sensitive, confidential, or potentially identifiable information.

本政策适用于访谈、问卷、实验、心理测量、行为观察、线上平台研究、机构资料研究、法律经验研究、二次数据分析以及任何可能涉及个人身份、隐私、敏感信息或研究风险的研究。

Authors must obtain ethics approval, institutional review approval, or equivalent clearance before conducting research where such approval is required by law, institutional policy, funding requirements, professional standards, or the nature of the research.

Manuscripts should state, where applicable:

• Name of the ethics committee, institutional review board, or approving body;
• Approval number, protocol number, or reference number where available;
• Date of approval or exemption;
• Whether the study was approved, exempted, waived, or judged not to require review;
• Any special conditions imposed by the ethics committee or approving body;
• How informed consent and participant protection were handled.

需要伦理审批的研究，应在研究开始前取得相关伦理委员会、机构审查委员会或同等机构批准。稿件中应说明审批机构、审批编号、审批日期、豁免情况或不需审批的理由。

Some research may not require formal ethics approval, depending on applicable laws, institutional rules, data type, research risk, and whether participants or personal data are involved. Authors must still explain why formal approval was not required.

Examples may include:

• Analysis of publicly available legal documents, statutes, regulations, judgments, policy documents, or published materials;
• Review articles, theoretical papers, doctrinal legal analysis, or conceptual studies with no human participants or personal data;
• Use of fully anonymized, publicly available datasets where re-identification risk is minimal and use is permitted;
• Archival or documentary research where no identifiable private information is collected, disclosed, or analyzed;
• Research determined by an authorized ethics body to be exempt from review.

即使研究不需要正式伦理审批，作者也应在稿件中说明理由。若研究涉及可识别个人信息、敏感主题、脆弱群体或潜在风险，作者不应简单以“公开资料”为由免除伦理说明。

Authors must obtain informed consent from participants where required. Consent should be voluntary, specific, informed, and documented in a manner appropriate to the research context, participant population, risk level, and applicable requirements.

Participants should normally be informed about:

• The purpose of the study;
• What participation involves and how long it will take;
• Potential risks, discomforts, burdens, or benefits;
• Whether participation is voluntary and whether withdrawal is possible;
• How data will be collected, recorded, stored, analyzed, shared, and reported;
• How privacy, anonymity, and confidentiality will be protected;
• Whether audio, video, images, screenshots, or direct quotations will be used;
• Who to contact for questions about the study or participant rights.

知情同意应建立在自愿、充分告知和可理解的基础上。作者应说明参与者是否知情同意、同意方式、同意范围，以及是否允许录音、录像、截图、引用原话或公开使用相关材料。

In some cases, informed consent may be waived, modified, or obtained in an alternative form when permitted by an ethics committee, institutional policy, law, or accepted research practice. Authors must explain the basis for the waiver or modification.

Authors should explain:

• Who approved or justified the waiver, exemption, or modification;
• Why obtaining standard consent was not practicable or necessary;
• How participant rights, welfare, privacy, and confidentiality were protected;
• Whether data were anonymized, aggregated, or de-identified;
• Whether the research involved minimal risk;
• Whether any public interest, legal, institutional, or methodological reason justified the approach.

如采用知情同意豁免、口头同意、在线同意、延迟告知或其他替代形式，作者应说明依据、批准情况、风险控制、隐私保护和参与者权益保障措施。

Research involving vulnerable participants or sensitive topics requires heightened ethical attention. Authors should demonstrate that risks have been identified, minimized, and ethically justified.

Special care is required for research involving:

• Children, minors, students, elderly persons, persons with disabilities, or individuals with limited decision-making capacity;
• Victims, survivors, witnesses, detainees, migrants, refugees, clients, patients, employees, or persons in dependent relationships;
• Psychological distress, trauma, mental health, criminal justice, discrimination, harassment, domestic violence, political opinion, religion, sexuality, health, or legal disputes;
• Power imbalance between researcher and participant, such as teacher-student, employer-employee, clinician-patient, lawyer-client, or authority-subordinate relationships;
• Communities or groups where disclosure may cause stigma, retaliation, legal risk, social harm, or reputational harm.

涉及未成年人、学生、受害者、证人、弱势群体、心理健康、刑事司法、歧视、创伤、法律争议或权力不平等关系的研究，应说明额外保护措施、风险控制和必要的同意程序。

Research involving children or minors must comply with applicable legal, institutional, educational, and ethical requirements. Authors should obtain parental or guardian consent and child assent where required and appropriate.

• Participation must be voluntary and age-appropriate;
• Information sheets and consent materials should be understandable to the participant group;
• Parents, guardians, schools, platforms, institutions, or authorities should not pressure children to participate;
• Children’s privacy, safety, dignity, and developmental vulnerability should be protected;
• Identifiable images, voices, names, school details, platform IDs, or quotations should be used only with appropriate consent and safeguards;
• Research involving children’s online behavior, platform data, recommender systems, or digital communication requires careful privacy and risk assessment.

涉及儿童或未成年人的研究，应根据适用要求取得监护人同意和未成年人同意或同意表达，并采取符合年龄、理解能力和风险程度的保护措施。

Authors must protect participant privacy and confidentiality throughout data collection, analysis, manuscript preparation, peer review, publication, and post-publication communication.

Authors should consider:

• Removing direct identifiers such as names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, institutional IDs, social media handles, or case numbers;
• Reducing indirect identifiers such as rare occupation, location, institution, role, event, legal case, or combination of demographic details;
• Using pseudonyms, aggregation, masking, generalization, or paraphrasing where appropriate;
• Protecting raw data, recordings, transcripts, screenshots, field notes, and consent forms from unauthorized access;
• Avoiding publication of identifiable quotations unless consent and justification are clear;
• Checking whether anonymization remains effective after combining details from the manuscript, tables, figures, appendices, and supplementary files.

作者应注意直接标识符和间接标识符。即使删除姓名，特定地点、机构、职位、事件、法律案件或引文组合仍可能导致重新识别，应采取必要的匿名化和保密措施。

Research involving online communities, social media, platform data, public comments, chat logs, user-generated content, algorithmic systems, or digital traces should address privacy expectations, consent, identifiability, platform terms, data access, and potential harm.

• Public availability of online content does not automatically remove ethical responsibilities;
• Authors should consider whether users reasonably expected their content to be used for research;
• Direct quotations from online content may be searchable and may identify users;
• Screenshots, profile images, usernames, location data, timestamps, and platform IDs may reveal identity;
• Research involving closed groups, private messages, minors, sensitive communities, or vulnerable users requires heightened safeguards;
• Data collection should respect applicable laws, platform terms, privacy settings, and institutional requirements.

线上内容公开可见并不当然意味着可以无条件用于研究。涉及社交媒体、平台评论、群组内容、用户画像、算法推荐、数字足迹或儿童在线数据的研究，应特别说明隐私、同意、可识别性和潜在风险。

Research involving deception, incomplete disclosure, psychological manipulation, distress, sensitive questions, or behavioral intervention should be ethically justified and reviewed where required.

• Deception should be used only when scientifically necessary and ethically justified;
• Participants should not be exposed to unnecessary or excessive risk;
• Debriefing should be provided where appropriate and practicable;
• Participants should be given information about support resources where sensitive or distressing topics are involved;
• Authors should explain how adverse reactions, withdrawal, complaints, or participant distress were handled;
• Any intervention, manipulation, or experimental procedure should be described transparently in the manuscript.

涉及欺瞒、延迟告知、心理压力、敏感问题、行为干预或实验操控的研究，应说明伦理依据、风险控制、事后告知和参与者支持措施。

Incentives, compensation, course credit, gifts, reimbursements, or institutional benefits should not be so large or structured in a way that creates undue influence, coercion, or pressure to participate.

• Participation should be voluntary and free from coercion;
• Participants should understand that refusal or withdrawal will not result in improper penalty;
• Students, employees, clients, patients, detainees, or dependent participants require special attention to power imbalance;
• Compensation should be proportionate to time, burden, and local context;
• The manuscript should disclose incentives or compensation where relevant to interpretation or ethics.

研究报酬、课程加分、礼品或其他激励不得构成不当诱导或压力。对于学生、员工、客户、患者、被监管人员或其他依附关系群体，应特别说明如何保障自愿参与。

Authors should manage research data responsibly and in accordance with participant consent, ethics approval, legal obligations, institutional policy, and data protection requirements.

Authors should state, where applicable:

• Where and how data are stored;
• Who has access to identifiable or sensitive data;
• Whether data are anonymized, pseudonymized, aggregated, encrypted, or access-controlled;
• Whether data can be shared and under what conditions;
• Whether consent permits data sharing, archiving, reuse, or public posting;
• How long data will be retained and when they will be deleted or archived;
• Why data cannot be shared, if sharing is restricted by consent, confidentiality, law, or participant risk.

作者应根据知情同意、伦理审批、法律要求和机构政策管理数据。若因隐私、保密、法律或风险原因无法公开数据，应在数据可得性声明中说明。

中文稿件可使用中文伦理声明。作者应根据实际研究情况修改示例，不得机械套用或作出不真实声明。

Authors, reviewers, and editors must protect participant data and confidential manuscript materials when using any external tool, including generative AI systems, translation tools, transcription services, cloud services, or data analysis platforms.

• Identifiable, confidential, personal, sensitive, or unpublished participant data must not be uploaded to external tools unless permitted by consent, law, ethics approval, and data protection requirements;
• AI tools must not be used to fabricate consent records, interview transcripts, survey responses, participant quotations, images, data, or findings;
• Authors remain responsible for verifying AI-assisted transcription, translation, coding, summarization, or analysis;
• Peer reviewers must not upload confidential manuscripts or review materials into AI tools;
• Substantive AI use should be disclosed where applicable.

作者、审稿人和编辑在使用 AI、翻译、转录、云服务或数据分析工具时，必须保护受试者资料和稿件保密性。不得将可识别、敏感、保密或未发表资料上传至可能保存、训练、传播或再利用内容的外部系统，除非已经取得相应授权并符合法律和伦理要求。

JLPCS may request clarification or documentation when ethics approval, informed consent, participant protection, privacy, data protection, or research risk information is incomplete or unclear.

Possible editorial actions include:

• Requesting additional ethics approval information, consent materials, or data protection explanations;
• Returning the manuscript for revision before peer review;
• Pausing peer review, production, or publication while concerns are assessed;
• Seeking clarification from authors, institutions, ethics committees, or relevant authorities where appropriate;
• Rejecting a manuscript when ethical requirements are not met;
• Issuing a correction, expression of concern, retraction, or editorial notice after publication where necessary.

如伦理审批、知情同意、隐私保护、数据安全或研究风险说明不充分，编辑部可要求补充材料、暂停审稿或出版流程，必要时拒稿或采取出版后处理措施。

Questions about human subjects research, informed consent, ethics approval, privacy protection, sensitive data, online research, or participant confidentiality may be directed to the JLPCS Editorial Office.

有关人类受试者研究、知情同意、伦理审批、隐私保护、敏感数据、线上研究或参与者保密的问题，可联系 JLPCS 编辑部。

Email: [email protected]