An interventional study of Blur Obfuscation and Cartoon Obfuscation in Wearable Electronic Device, sponsored by Northwestern University. Recruiting at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years and older, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-05-07.
Sponsored by Northwestern University · Not applicable, Interventional, and Basic science
This study utilizes a small, privacy-conscious wearable device intended to monitor human behaviors. The device is worn around the neck, capturing the wearer's head and upper torso within its field of view, and records color images without audio. Participants visit the lab for consent, device training and recording of several activities using the device. Participants will then take the device home and wear it during their normal schedules for four "active" weeks. During each active week, participants will wear the device, keep a log of all food and drink items consumed throughout the day and participate in unscheduled phone calls with a dietitian. A "washout" week occurs in between each active week in which participants do not need to complete any study tasks. Alongside the device, we have included three privacy filters (blur, edge, and avatar) capable of obscuring faces and objects seen in the device-captured images. All participants will be subject to unfiltered recording during their first week followed by a different filter each following active week in a random order. At the start of each active week, participants view an example of what their recorded images will look like that week (given the privacy filter). At the end of the seven weeks, participants will return the device and provide the lab with feedback on the design of the device and its privacy-preserving features.
370 studies on the registry are indexed under Behavior; 157 are open to participants now.
This study's planned enrollment of 72 is below the median of 119 across 294 interventional studies indexed under Behavior.
Browse Behavior studies →Northwestern University is the lead sponsor of 1,396 studies on the registry; 199 are open to participants now.
Of its 102 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 73 (72%) have results posted.
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Exclusion Criteria:
Behavioral: Blur Obfuscation
Behavioral: Edge Obfuscation
Behavioral: Cartoon Obfuscation
Behavioral: No Obfuscation (raw)
Blurring is applied to the RGB images.
Cartoonization is applied to the RGB images.
A black background and simple outlines of objects/people are applied to the RGB images.
No editing is performed on the RGB images.
Daily wear time
Time frame: 7 days
Self-report acceptability
Time frame: 7 days
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Plan to share: No
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Northwestern University