On the Impact of Information Provided to Employees on their Intention to Disclose Data Collected by Smart Watches to their Employers

Companies are increasingly equipping employees with smart watches to improve employees\u27 performance, health, or safety. Thus employers can collect sensitive employees\u27 data using smart watches, including, e.g., employees\u27 health and emotions. This paper investigates the effects of employers\u27 provided information on the employees\u27 intention to share information like activity, health, and location when equipped with a smart watch, considering the privacy calculus. To this end, we have conducted a scenario-based online survey with 1,214 participants in which they have to imagine being equipped with a smart watch by their employer. The scenario was changed in a post-test by increasing employers\u27 provided information to measure the impact of this change on the participants\u27 decisions. Our results indicate that the more information employers provide, the less the participants are willing to disclose data. Therefore, employees who obtain transparent information tend to weigh risks significantly higher in the associated cost-benefit analysis

Innovative public governance through cloud computing: Information privacy, business models and performance measurement challenges

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze challenges and to discuss proposed solutions for innovative public governance through cloud computing. Innovative technologies, such as federation of services and cloud computing, can greatly contribute to the provision of e-government services, through scaleable and flexible systems. Furthermore, they can facilitate in reducing costs and overcoming public information segmentation. Nonetheless, when public agencies use these technologies, they encounter several associated organizational and technical changes, as well as significant challenges. Design/methodology/approach: We followed a multidisciplinary perspective (social, behavioral, business and technical) and conducted a conceptual analysis for analyzing the associated challenges. We conducted focus group interviews in two countries for evaluating the performance models that resulted from the conceptual analysis. Findings: This study identifies and analyzes several challenges that may emerge while adopting innovative technologies for public governance and e-government services. Furthermore, it presents suggested solutions deriving from the experience of designing a related platform for public governance, including issues of privacy requirements, proposed business models and key performance indicators for public services on cloud computing. Research limitations/implications: The challenges and solutions discussed are based on the experience gained by designing one platform. However, we rely on issues and challenges collected from four countries. Practical implications: The identification of challenges for innovative design of e-government services through a central portal in Europe and using service federation is expected to inform practitioners in different roles about significant changes across multiple levels that are implied and may accelerate the challenges' resolution. Originality/value: This is the first study that discusses from multiple perspectives and through empirical investigation the challenges to realize public governance through innovative technologies. The results emerge from an actual portal that will function at a European level. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited

I Spy with my Little Sensor Eye - Effect of Data-Tracking and Convenience on the Intention to Use Smart Technology.

The increasing number of smart objects in private households leads to a profound invasion of privacy. Based on privacy calculus theory, we assume that many users accept tracking in exchange for full functioning and convenience. However, privacy calculus has not yet been tested in an area where privacy protection is a binary decision: to either use a product or not. Therefore, we examined the effect of convenience and tracking on the intention to use a smart device in a 2 x 2 between-subjects online experiment (N = 209). While convenience is a major factor for the willingness to deploy smart technology, users do not seem to care whether these devices track their personal data or not

The Role of the Privacy Calculus and the Privacy Paradox in the Acceptance of Wearables for Health and Wellbeing

The Internet along with innovations in technology have inspired an industry focused on designing portable devices, known as wearables that can track users’ personal activities and wellbeing. While such technologies have many benefits, they also have risks (especially regarding information privacy and security). These concerns become even more pronounced with healthcare-related wearables. Consequently, users must consider the benefits given the risks (privacy calculus); however, users often opt for wearables despite their disclosure concerns (privacy paradox). In this study, we investigate the multidimensional role that privacy (and, in particular, the privacy calculus and the privacy paradox) plays in consumers’ intention to disclose their personal information, whether health status has a moderating effect on the relationship, and the influence of privacy on acceptance. To do so, we evaluated a research model that explicitly focused on the privacy calculus and the privacy paradox in the healthcare wearables acceptance domain. We used a survey-oriented approach to collect data from 225 users and examined relationships among privacy, health, and acceptance constructs. In that regard, our research confirmed significant evidence of the influence of the privacy calculus on disclosure and acceptance as well as evidence of the privacy paradox when considering health status. We found that consumers felt less inclined to disclose their personal information when the risks to privacy outweighed benefits; however, health status moderated this behavior such that people with worse health tipped the scale towards disclosure. This study expands our previous knowledge about healthcare wearables’ privacy/acceptance paradigm and, thus, the influences that affect healthcare wearables’ acceptance in the privacy context

The role of the humanisation of smart home speakers in the personalisation–privacy paradox

This article examines the personalisation–privacy paradox through the privacy calculus lens in the context of smart home speakers. It also considers the direct and moderating role of humanisation in the personalisation–privacy paradox. This characteristic refers to how human the device is perceived to be, given its voice''s tone and pacing, original responses, sense of humour, and recommendations. The model was tested on a sample of 360 users of different brands of smart home speakers. These users were heterogeneous in terms of age, gender, income, and frequency of use of the device. The results confirm the personalisation–privacy paradox and verify uncanny valley theory, finding the U-shaped effect that humanisation has on risks of information disclosure. They also show that humanisation increases benefits, which supports the realism maximisation theory. Specifically, they reveal that users will perceive the messages received as more useful and credible if the devices seem human. However, the human-likeness of these devices should not exceed certain levels as it increases perceived risk. These results should be used to highlight the importance of the human-like communication of smart home speakers. © 2022 The Author

How Acceptable Is This? How User Experience Factors Can Broaden our Understanding of the Acceptance of Privacy Trade-Offs

Privacy is a timely topic that is increasingly scrutinized in the public eye. In spite of privacy and security breaches, people still frequently compromise their privacy in exchange for certain benefits of a technology or a service. This study builds on both technology acceptance (TA) and user experience (UX) research in order to explore and build hypotheses regarding additional dimensions that might play a role in the acceptability of privacy tradeoffs that are not currently accounted for in TA models. Using four scenarios describing situations with potential privacy trade-offs, we conducted a focus group study with 8 groups of participants (N = 32). Our results suggest that factors influencing privacy trade-offs go beyond existing TA factors alone. A technology's perceived usefulness plays an important role, as well as dimensions related to context, previous experiences, perceived autonomy and the feeling of control over the data being shared

DESIGN AND EXPLORATION OF NEW MODELS FOR SECURITY AND PRIVACY-SENSITIVE COLLABORATION SYSTEMS

Collaboration has been an area of interest in many domains including education, research, healthcare supply chain, Internet of things, and music etc. It enhances problem solving through expertise sharing, ideas sharing, learning and resource sharing, and improved decision making. To address the limitations in the existing literature, this dissertation presents a design science artifact and a conceptual model for collaborative environment. The first artifact is a blockchain based collaborative information exchange system that utilizes blockchain technology and semi-automated ontology mappings to enable secure and interoperable health information exchange among different health care institutions. The conceptual model proposed in this dissertation explores the factors that influences professionals continued use of video- conferencing applications. The conceptual model investigates the role the perceived risks and benefits play in influencing professionals’ attitude towards VC apps and consequently its active and automatic use

Tracking Fitness or Sickness - Combining Technology Acceptance and Privacy Research to Investigate the Actual Adoption of Fitness Trackers

Personal data is often collected, processed and utilized without the knowledge of the information system’s user. With regard to the enormous value of personalized data for companies as well as consumers’ tendency to unreflectively disclose their data, privacy concerns have been an essential topic for researchers since the mid-1990s. However, established research models of wearable IS-technologies are inadequate to comprehensively investigate the issue of privacy and its effects on acceptance variables. Therefore, the following study aims to empirically validate a research model which considers privacy concerns as a central construct in predicting the actual usage of fitness trackers. The results of our investigation underline the vital role of privacy concerns for the acceptance of fitness trackers and imply that the current providers’ advertising is insufficient in meeting the consumers’ needs