Legal & ethics
Grief-sensitive participation
Most sitters and family representatives are bereaved. The project is designed so that taking part is procedurally clear, emotionally low-pressure, and never dependent on hope of a particular outcome.
Timing after a death
Family representatives are not enrolled in the period immediately following a death. A minimum interval is set per protocol, and coordinators may extend it on welfare grounds without appeal to research need.
Enrolment is not a reading
Enrolling a target is an administrative and archival task, not an encounter. Sitters are told clearly, in advance, that they will not receive a personal reading and that nothing produced will be interpreted for them.
No result is framed as reassurance
Coordinators never describe a score, ranking or transcript as evidence about a specific person. Study outcomes are communicated at the programme level, in neutral language.
Stop conditions
A session is stopped when a participant asks, when distress is evident, or when the coordinator judges continuation inappropriate. Stopping is recorded as a legitimate outcome, never as a failed attempt.
Pacing and breaks
Sessions are time-limited with scheduled breaks. Participants set their own pace and may reschedule without explanation.
Content warnings and opt-outs
Sitters choose in advance whether sensitive categories — cause of death, medical history, final illness — may be used in verification at all. Any category can be excluded without affecting eligibility.
Debrief
Every participating sitter is offered a short debrief covering what happened procedurally, what will and will not be reported, and how to withdraw.
Independent support, not project support
Coordinators provide a list of recognised bereavement organisations in the participant's country. The project does not provide counselling and does not act as a support service.
Coordinator training and duty
Coordinators are briefed on bereavement-sensitive conduct and are explicitly authorised to end or refuse a session on welfare grounds. Choosing participant welfare over data collection is never a performance concern.
What we will not do
We will not use grief to recruit, to solicit funding, or to encourage continued participation. We will not tell a participant that a study result concerns their relative. We will not present the programme as a route to contact, comfort or closure.