@ashleygjovik That's completely horrifying. That's a Black Mirror episode or two.As a psychological researcher I've had to take research ethics training over and over, and to go through IRB review for even the mildest survey study. Very basic principles applying to all human subjects research includeFull informed consent for all participants except in cases where the human, societal, or scientific benefits of a study clearly justify deception of participants; and then the benefits and deception must be proportionalParticipants' information is a protected resource. An informed decision to participate in a study needs to include telling participants who will have their information, for how long, etc. "Company profit" is not, and absolutely should never be, part of any ethics risk-benefit analysisThe US government has (I assume this hasn't been totally destroyed by DOGE, yet) a strong and constantly-developing system for managing research ethics: Thousands of IRBs (institutional review boards) that all adhere to federal ethics guidelines (many drafted after traumatizingly unethical research in the past), ethics review of all government-funded grant proposals, and recommendations (sometimes actual laws) for private or corporate research. In fact, many non-academic research projects are actually managed by IRBs; nonprofits and companies frequently contract with independent IRBs for ethics oversight of their research.There is absolutely no reason to be ignorant of the ethical concerns involved in human subjects research. Apple is being evil and knows it is being evil.
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