Human & Animal Research Ethics Policy

Research involving human participants must have been conducted in accordance with applicable ethical standards and relevant laws and regulations.

Where required, authors must obtain approval from an appropriate independent ethics committee, Institutional Review Board (IRB), Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC), or equivalent body before commencing the research.

The manuscript should state the name of the approving ethics committee or review body, approval/reference number where available, and confirmation that appropriate ethical approval was obtained.

JDDIEA may request documentation confirming ethical approval.

This policy applies not only to clinical or medical research but also to engineering and technology studies involving human participants. Examples may include:

• Wearable-device studies
• Human-machine interaction research
• Driver or transportation studies
• Biometric systems
• Human activity recognition
• User-experience studies
• Surveys and questionnaires
• Interviews
• Behavioural experiments
• Physiological monitoring
• Biomedical devices and sensors
• Smart-health applications
• Human performance studies
• Studies involving personally identifiable or sensitive human data

Authors should not assume that a study is exempt from ethical review merely because it is primarily engineering or computational research.

Where required, participants must provide appropriate informed consent before taking part in the research.

Authors should state in the manuscript whether informed consent was obtained.

For minors or individuals unable to provide legally valid consent, appropriate consent should be obtained from a parent, legal guardian, or legally authorised representative, together with participant assent where applicable.

If an ethics committee formally waived the requirement for informed consent, this should be clearly stated, including the basis of the waiver where appropriate.

Participation in a research study does not automatically constitute consent for publication of identifiable information.

Authors must obtain appropriate consent for publication when manuscripts contain information that could reasonably identify an individual, including photographs, videos, medical images, case descriptions, voice recordings, personal characteristics, identifiable quotations, or other identifiable personal information.

Such consent should be retained by the authors and made available to JDDIEA where legitimately required.

Authors must protect the privacy and confidentiality of research participants.

Personally identifying information should not be published unless it is scientifically necessary and appropriate consent for publication has been obtained.

Unnecessary identifying information should be removed or appropriately anonymised.

Authors should ensure that de-identification does not alter or misrepresent the scientific meaning of the data.

Research involving previously collected datasets, healthcare records, institutional datasets, publicly available datasets, biometric data, or other human-derived information must comply with applicable ethical requirements, consent conditions, dataset licences, data-protection requirements, institutional restrictions, and terms of access and use.

Public availability of a dataset does not automatically remove all ethical responsibilities.

Authors should describe the origin of important datasets and any relevant ethical or access conditions.

Additional ethical care must be taken where research involves vulnerable individuals or populations, which may include children, individuals with impaired decision-making capacity, patients, economically or socially vulnerable communities, individuals in dependent relationships, and people affected by emergencies or disasters.

Authors must demonstrate that appropriate ethical protections were used.

Requirements for ethical review vary by country, institution, and type of study.

If authors believe that formal ethics approval was not required, they should provide an appropriate statement explaining the basis for that determination.

Where relevant, authors should identify the institution, ethics body, regulation, or policy under which the research was considered exempt.

JDDIEA may request further clarification or supporting documentation.

The journal reserves the right to decline publication where significant ethical concerns remain unresolved, even where an exemption has been claimed.

Where JDDIEA receives research involving human health or medical interventions, authors should follow recognised ethical principles applicable to human research, including the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki where relevant.

Applicable institutional and regulatory requirements must also be followed.

Ethics approval does not prevent the journal from independently considering whether the reported research raises serious ethical concerns.

Where a manuscript reports a clinical trial or another study for which prospective registration is required under recognised standards or applicable regulations, authors should provide the relevant registration information, including trial registry name, registration number, and registration date where applicable.

Any significant deviation from the registered protocol should be explained transparently.

Research involving animals must comply with applicable institutional, national, and recognised ethical standards for animal care and use.

Where required, authors must obtain approval from an appropriate animal ethics committee or equivalent institutional body before conducting the study.

The manuscript should state the name of the approving committee or authority, approval/reference number where available, and relevant animal-care or welfare standards followed.

JDDIEA may request evidence of approval.

Authors should demonstrate that:

• Animal use was scientifically justified
• Appropriate measures were taken to minimise pain, distress, and suffering
• Appropriate anaesthesia, analgesia, humane endpoints, and husbandry practices were used where relevant
• The number of animals used was scientifically justified
• Alternatives to animal use were considered where appropriate

Methods should be described sufficiently to allow readers and reviewers to assess the ethical conduct of the study.

Where applicable, JDDIEA encourages researchers to follow the principles of the 3Rs:

• Replacement: Use alternatives to animals where scientifically appropriate.
• Reduction: Use no more animals than reasonably necessary to achieve valid scientific objectives.
• Refinement: Design procedures to minimise pain, distress, or harm and improve animal welfare.

Research involving human or animal tissues, biological samples, genetic material, or other ethically sensitive biological resources must comply with relevant consent, ethics, institutional, legal, and biosafety requirements.

Authors should explain the source of the material and relevant approval or consent and conditions governing its use where applicable.

Research involving identifiable images, facial information, voice data, biometric identifiers, or similar sensitive information must include appropriate ethical and privacy safeguards.

Use of facial recognition, biometric identification, emotion recognition, surveillance, or related technologies should be described transparently where ethically relevant.

Authors remain responsible for ensuring lawful and ethical collection and use of such data.

Research using artificial intelligence or machine-learning systems trained or evaluated on human-derived data must comply with the same ethical and privacy requirements applicable to the underlying data.

Authors should consider consent, privacy, data provenance, bias, dataset permissions, sensitive attributes, potential harms, and appropriate de-identification.

Use of AI does not remove ethical responsibilities associated with human data.

Where relevant, manuscripts should include a dedicated ethics statement identifying ethical approval, approval authority, approval/reference number, informed consent status, and consent for publication where applicable.

If a requirement was waived or the study was formally exempt, this should be stated.

If JDDIEA identifies unresolved ethical concerns, the journal may:

• Request additional information or documentation
• Suspend editorial processing
• Seek independent expert or institutional clarification
• Reject the manuscript
• Refer the matter to an appropriate institution or authority
• Correct, issue an expression of concern, or retract a published article where necessary

Serious misrepresentation of ethical approval or participant consent may be handled under the JDDIEA Research Misconduct Policy.

JDDIEA will not ordinarily consider retrospective ethical approval sufficient where prior approval was required before the research began.

Exceptional circumstances will be evaluated individually and may require clarification from the relevant institution or ethics body.

The existence of ethics committee approval does not automatically guarantee publication.

Editors and reviewers may still consider whether the study was conducted and reported in a manner consistent with reasonable ethical standards.

Authors remain responsible for:

• Obtaining required ethical approval
• Obtaining appropriate consent
• Protecting participant confidentiality
• Complying with animal-welfare requirements
• Ensuring lawful and ethical data use
• Accurately reporting ethical procedures
• Retaining relevant supporting documentation

Submission to JDDIEA constitutes confirmation that applicable ethical requirements have been satisfied.

Where appropriate, JDDIEA may consider recognised guidance and standards concerning research ethics, including relevant principles from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Declaration of Helsinki, recognised institutional ethics standards, and applicable national regulations.

The requirements applicable to a particular manuscript will depend on the nature of the research and the jurisdiction in which it was conducted.