Some typical scenarios this would apply to include, or example, a surveyor doing social research conducts an interview with a participant, or a medical researcher in a clinical trial asks for a blood sample from a participant to see if there is a relationship between something which can be measured in blood and a person's health.
[citation needed] A privacy attack is the exploitation of an opportunity for someone to identify a study participant based on public research data.
This principle has been used successfully in creating maps of diabetes in Australia [5] and the United Kingdom [6] using confidential General Practice clinic data.
Concerns include facing genetic discrimination from an insurance company or employer.
[8] Respondents in the United States have expressed a desire to have their research data to be restricted from access by law enforcement agencies and would want to prevent a connection between study participation and legal consequences of the same.
[9] Another fear study participants have is about the research revealing private personal practices which a person may not want to discuss, such as a medical history which includes a sexually transmitted disease, substance abuse, psychiatric treatment, or an elective abortion.
[10] In the case of genomic studies on families, genetic screening may reveal that paternity is different from what had been supposed.
However, ethical practices meant that they were obliged to respect the privacy and wishes of the participants and so they could not do so.