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Consent management for user research

June 24, 2026 · 6 min read

Consent is where research ethics and the law meet the day-to-day. Done well, it protects participants, keeps you compliant, and builds the trust that makes people open up. Done poorly, it is a liability waiting to surface.

What good consent looks like

• Informed — the participant understands what you will collect and why.
• Specific — it covers this study and purpose, not everything forever.
• Recorded — you can show what each person agreed to, and when.
• Revocable — withdrawing is easy, and you can actually act on it.

What to track per participant

• Consent status — granted, pending, expired, or withdrawn.
• Scope — what it covers (interview, recording, use of quotes).
• Recording permission and any NDA, tracked separately from general consent.
• Expiry and retention — when consent lapses, and when data should be removed.

Practices that hold up

• Capture consent before the session, not after.
• Make status visible at a glance across your participants.
• Handle expiry and withdrawal by anonymizing or deleting, on a schedule.
• Tie consent to retention, so lapsed consent triggers cleanup.

How Lens helps

Lens tracks consent status, recording permission, and NDA per participant, and pairs them with anonymize, export, and erasure — with GDPR settings that gate consent and retention policy. For the bigger picture, see GDPR-compliant user research.

This article is general guidance, not legal advice — validate against your own policies and obligations.

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