Seeing Without Being Seen: A Review of Ethical and Human-Centric ISAC in 6G

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper reviews ethical and human-centric ISAC in 6G, analyzes KVs/KVIs across multi-stakeholders and summarizes typical use cases, with high research relevance and valuable analysis insights. However, several key issues need addressing to improve rigor before publication.

1. The core concept ethical invisibility is only briefly defined in Section 1, with no elaboration on its formation mechanism in ISAC non-interactive sensing, nor differentiation from similar concepts like algorithmic opacity. Supplement its theoretical connotation and unique characteristics in 6G ISAC.
2. The highly relevant work regarding the ISAC systems, e.g., "AI-Enhanced Integrated Sensing and Communications: Advancements, Challenges, and Prospects" in IEEE ComMag, is suggested to be discussed to provide readers with a more well-rounded perspective.
3. The 0–3 qualitative coding scale for KV evaluation lacks specific criteria and boundary judgment standards between levels, and no inter-coder reliability verification is provided, which may affect the objectivity of analysis results.
4. Six core KVs for 6G ISAC are identified, but their internal logical correlation and hierarchical relationship are unclear. Clarify the dominant position of human-centricity and the interaction mechanism between other KVs combined with ISAC scenarios.
5. Section 3.2 shows KV emphasis differences among stakeholders via scores and radar charts, but lacks statistical significance analysis. Supplement ANOVA and other tests to verify the scientificity of the conclusions.
6. A large number of human-centric ISAC use cases are reviewed, but no systematic ethical risk assessment framework is constructed. Build a targeted assessment system for case-by-case risk classification and evaluation.
7. The paper points out KV operationalization into KVIs as a key research direction, but no specific design ideas for ISAC-specific KVIs are given. Propose scenario-specific KVI principles and preliminary indicators for subjective KVs like trust and transparency.
8. Industrial reports only account for 3 of the 22 analysis sources (14%), with a small sample size that may cause biased conclusions. Explain the sample selection reason and supplement a robustness check for industrial stakeholder analysis results.

Author Response

We thank the reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions. Please see the attached PDF file for our detailed point-by-point responses and a description of the revisions introduced in the manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper provides an overview of academic, institutional, and industrial contributions on human-centric 6G is provided, with a focus on how ethical values are addressed in ISAC-related contexts. Then, this paper also reviews the distinctive characteristics of ISAC through representative human-centric use cases involving non-interactive and often invisible sensing of people, highlighting the ethical and societal implications emerging from such scenarios.

I recommend revision for the below reasons:

1. I fund no novelty in this work except highlighting the review ideas. The inference by scientific way is missing which need to be addressed well.
2. I find the validation is missing in figure 1 distribution.
3. 6G-INTENSE [31 ], which adopts a qualitative mapping of relevant SDGs and use cases, with attention to socio-economic benefits and expected impact - did the authors utilized the factors
4. Figure 2 - the impact of linear 0.5, 1, 1.5 etc has any importance?
5. Line 555 to 566 - context doesnt reflect in conclusion much - what is the inference?
6. Reduce conclusion section and include the main inference in another section.
7. Overall, language is good but organization is moderate.

Author Response

We thank the reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions. Please see the attached PDF file for our detailed point-by-point responses and a description of the revisions introduced in the manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

All my concerns are well addressed. I have no more comments.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have carried out all suitable corrections suggested by me and they have improved the paper well. Hence the paper shall be accepted in present form.