The study involved human participants and therefore raised issues relating to informed consent, confidentiality, data protection and the potential disclosure of participant identities. The research received institutional ethical approval before data collection, and all participants received a participant information sheet explaining the study, their rights and the proposed handling of their data. Participation was voluntary, and written informed consent was obtained before each session.

The principal disclosure risk arose from participants’ names, voices, images, workplace references and other personal information contained in recordings, chat logs, questionnaire responses and group discussions. Names were replaced with anonymous participant identifiers, and direct or indirect identifying information was removed from transcripts and research outputs. Questionnaire data were similarly anonymised and are not linked to names or contact details.

Raw video and audio recordings may allow participants to be identified from their appearance or voice and are therefore not suitable for unrestricted public access. These files should be excluded from the openly available dataset or retained under controlled access, limited to authorised researchers with an appropriate research purpose and an obligation to maintain confidentiality. Consent forms, contact details and any participant identification key should not be shared and should remain stored separately from the research data with access restricted to the principal researcher.

The openly shared data should therefore be limited to anonymised transcripts, de-identified questionnaire responses and coded interaction data. Although reasonable steps have been taken to remove identifying information, users of the dataset must not attempt to identify participants or combine the data with other information for that purpose. Any controlled access material should be made available only in accordance with the consent originally provided, applicable data protection requirements and the conditions imposed by the data repository or research institution.