Consent

“People have the right to expect that researchers will treat them as autonomous individuals, respecting their decisions about whether to take part in research and about what personal information they will or will not share with others.”
As I read this while completing my IRB refresher, my brain kept coming back to the phrase ‘autonomous individuals’. I thought of my angst about unregulated unabashed marketing messages on mobiles in India and how I am flabourgasted everytime somebody asks me for my mobile phone number as if it is an obvious piece of information that ‘needs’ to be shared. More so as nobody in my immediate circle in India seems to be flabourgasted.

I wonder if people do not consider themselves to be autonomous individuals who can have any opinion, a question, or a say in what information they would be comfortable sharing or what messages they will be OK receiving as a result of this. If one is told that this piece of information is mandatory to be shared, one has to share it. No questions asked. How did we become these people?