How to work with young people in Citizen Science? Parental Consent requirements in CS Apps

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How to work with young people in Citizen Science?

In many Citizen Science Apps, participants are younger than 16 or 18 years of age. From educational school-based projects to including the youth in workshops, feedback, or data collection: the engagement of younger people is often at the core of Citizen Science projects. To invite underaged children to be active in a digital tool like Citizen Science Apps requires to have extended measures in place. There are national and international requirements, legal frameworks, and even technical aspects to be considered.

On SPOTTERON, all Citizen Science projects can now comfortably include the younger generation officially in their Apps. Together with our consortium partners in the EU Horizon project "YouCount," we have developed a comprehensive system for user account registration to comply with national age limits and parental/guardian consent.

Having the measures in place: the new Citizen Science App Parental/Guardian Consent System on SPOTTERON

The system, which is now automatically included for all Apps on the SPOTTERON platform, calculates a user's current age based on the provided birthday at the user account registration. In the background, a data table matches the user's age with the legal capacity limit of a user's country of residence to display a new mandatory checkbox, along with explanations and information for parents/guardians.

‍If the young citizen scientist needs her or his parents to give allowance for participation in an App, parents or a legal guardian can consent that the minor is allowed to create the user account. This requirement can be different on a per-country basis.

The new consent system makes it lawfully possible to, e.g., recruit school classes or hold workshops with Apps involved and work with youth officially within a project, both on a national and international scope. And even in the case, that younger people are not a directly involved target group: the implemented parental/guardian consent system allows your project to be still on the side of legal compliance with privacy frameworks. On the SPOTTERON platform, every project partner is now able to demonstrate that there are the required measures included in their digital Apps.

Do you want to utilize the Youth Consent System in your project?

When running your Citizen Science App on the SPOTTERON Platform, you can use the new Parental/Guardian Consent System right from the start and officially reach out to the younger generations with your project. With the new consent system for youth participation available in your digital Apps, you can now show review boards, GDPR data privacy officers, institutional directors, or other involved decision-makers that your Citizen Science App has the necessary measures in place to identify under-aged users and a mandatory informed consent for parents/guardians.

Write us to learn more or send your questions!

Ethics for youth participation in Citizen Science

Implementing the feature for all Citizen Science Apps is not only necessary to fulfilling national laws at a user's origin but also having such systems available means a practical approach to quality ethics in a project. Besides enabling the possibility to work with youth in an educational setting, it extends to having younger people officially download and use your Apps, which is - let's face it - a reality in an open online world and also vital in Citizen Science.

‍JOIN UP FOR CITIZEN SCIENCE
INCLUDE THE YOUTH IN YOUR PROJECT AND USE THE PARENTAL CONSENT SYSTEM

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All the best from Vienna!

Your SPOTTERON Citizen Science Team

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