So traffic counting items on roads to optimize road flow cannot be done?

Stores cannot track purchases to optimize products and ads?

Epidemiologists cannot look at large trends to determine allocation of medicine without getting consent of every person in a society?

And on and on?

There are plenty of places that it's both legal and useful (and even moral or right if you like those words) to gather data about humans and actions and behavior without the possibility or efficacy to get "informed consent".

Difference here of course is that subjects are being measured in a way which is almost definitely not fully anonymous.

Of course an IRB review and an explanation of how data is properly anonymized should be there.

>Difference here of course is that subjects are being measured in a way which is almost definitely not fully anonymous.

There's no way to conclude that from the article. The devices are designed to measure if a seat is being used, not take blood samples or record PII.

If that data simply ends up being total # of seat hours in a given class, or seat-hours by time of day, then that's far more anonymous than a routine traffic cam tracking traffic flow, or tons of other things not requiring IRB review.

It sounds more like the usual outrage spin. Maybe they'll simply use common security cameras in each room, and count people by face recognition :)

Research via measurement alone is pretty different from research that involves trying to change behavior.

Different, yes. That doesn't mean researchers can do whatever they want. They obviously could not install cameras in bathrooms, for instance. That would be not only unethical but illegal.

Tracking the movements of a person throughout the day without their knowledge is, by most people's standards, creepy as all hell.