Disposition toward privacy and information disclosure in the context of emerging health technologies.

ObjectiveWe sought to present a model of privacy disposition and its development based on qualitative research on privacy considerations in the context of emerging health technologies.Materials and methodsWe spoke to 108 participants across 44 interviews and 9 focus groups to understand the range of ways in which individuals value (or do not value) control over their health information. Transcripts of interviews and focus groups were systematically coded and analyzed in ATLAS.ti for privacy considerations expressed by respondents.ResultsThree key findings from the qualitative data suggest a model of privacy disposition. First, participants described privacy related behavior as both contextual and habitual. Second, there are motivations for and deterrents to sharing personal information that do not fit into the analytical categories of risks and benefits. Third, philosophies of privacy, often described as attitudes toward privacy, should be classified as a subtype of motivation or deterrent.DiscussionThis qualitative analysis suggests a simple but potentially powerful conceptual model of privacy disposition, or what makes a person more or less private. Components of privacy disposition are identifiable and measurable through self-report and therefore amenable to operationalization and further quantitative inquiry.ConclusionsWe propose this model as the basis for a psychometric instrument that can be used to identify types of privacy dispositions, with potential applications in research, clinical practice, system design, and policy

Systematic Review on Privacy Categorization

In the modern digital world users need to make privacy and security choices that have far-reaching consequences. Researchers are increasingly studying people's decisions when facing with privacy and security trade-offs, the pressing and time consuming disincentives that influence those decisions, and methods to mitigate them. This work aims to present a systematic review of the literature on privacy categorization, which has been defined in terms of profile, profiling, segmentation, clustering and personae. Privacy categorization involves the possibility to classify users according to specific prerequisites, such as their ability to manage privacy issues, or in terms of which type of and how many personal information they decide or do not decide to disclose. Privacy categorization has been defined and used for different purposes. The systematic review focuses on three main research questions that investigate the study contexts, i.e. the motivations and research questions, that propose privacy categorisations; the methodologies and results of privacy categorisations; the evolution of privacy categorisations over time. Ultimately it tries to provide an answer whether privacy categorization as a research attempt is still meaningful and may have a future

Job Applicants’ Information Privacy-Protective Response: Exploring the Roles of Technology Readiness and Trust

Firms need to acquire a wealth of information about job applicants prior to offering employment. However, the recruitment process in most firms is plagued by rising personal privacy concerns. This article draws upon the socio-cognitive theory of trust to understand the interconnected relationships among technology readiness, disposition to trust HR professionals, institutional-based trust and information privacy-protective response. The conceptual model argues that job applicants’ responses to privacy protection is determined by their trust disposition on HR professionals and social networking sites and personalities toward social technologies. The model was tested with U.S. students using a job recruitment related scenario. The results provide an understanding of how job applicants respond to the privacy issue, and shed some light on the role of technology readiness and trust dispositions. This should help human resource professionals improve the recruitment process for hiring employees with perspectives that are consistent with organizational interest and culture

Investigating the possibility of using an AR mask to support online psychological counseling

Mental health problems are prevalent issues in modern society. While psychological counseling has been a traditional solution, it faces such barriers as negative societal perceptions and limited accessibility. To overcome these, researchers have explored remote counseling via video/voice calls. Despite its advantages of accessibility, convenience, and anonymity, the lack of personal interaction continues to be a drawback. This study investigates the feasibility of using an augmented reality (AR) mask in remote counseling and whether it could increase the level of self-disclosure-which is often used to measure the effectiveness of counseling-while maintaining anonymity. We conducted a controlled experiment and a qualitative user study to assess the effects of AR masks on counselees' level of self-disclosure during remote counseling. The results suggest that AR masks can increase this level more effectively for people with a low disposition for self-disclosure

Genetic profiling: A legal framework to embrace the challenges

The current issues surrounding the use of genetic profiling technologies in New Zealand are analysed and compared with other jurisdictions, resulting in a number of key recommendations for the legal framework. An amendment to the Human Rights Act, review of the Health Information Privacy Code and an increased role for the Insurance and Savings Ombudsman are discussed in light of the developments in other jurisdictions. The implementation of a genetic database registration system and the development of policies to guide employers, insurers and health professionals on acceptable uses of genetic profile information are presented as recommendations to improve the current approaches. The establishment of an Advisory Body would ensure that safeguards against discrimination continue to be fair and effective, keeping pace with the rapid advancements in this field. The increased availability and the more acceptable costing are making the use of genetic profiling technology attractive. This is contributing further to the legal challenges, particularly when combined with the increasing range of applications for the data provided, in such diverse fields as the insurance industry, employment, personalised pharmaceuticals and the use of genetic databases. It is seen as essential that the legal framework promotes and supports the public in their access and use of genetic profiling technologies. These developments promise to be important and at the forefront of future heath care in New Zealand

SOCIAL NETWORK PRIVACY DISPOSITIONS: AN OBJECTIVE MEASUREMENT SCALE AND A CAUSAL MODEL

The Information Systems literature has substantially advanced understanding of privacy in both offline contexts and online environments. Despite the rich understanding, existing studies predominately focused on elucidating privacy issues specific to individuals. The increasingly popular usage of mobile apps with social media integration has fundamentally challenged current understanding and conceptualization of information privacy. In particular, mobile apps allow information collection beyond individuals’ personal scope (i.e., his/her personal information) and extend the scope of acquisition into individuals’ online social networks (i.e., his/her list of friends on Facebook). To fill this gap in the literature, drawing on the Communication Privacy Management Theory, this proposal focuses on three unique dimensions of social network privacy dispositions, namely permeability, ownership, and linkage. Second, we propose to operationalize these three dimensions of social network privacy dispositions using a second-order reflective construct, and we plan to develop an objective measurement scale for it. Lastly, we plan to validate the construct using a nomological network

Familiarity with Big Data, Privacy Concerns, and Self-disclosure Accuracy in Social Networking Websites: An APCO Model

Social networking websites have not only become the most prevalent communication tools in today’s digital age but also one of the top big data sources. Big data advocates promote the promising benefits of big data applications to both users and practitioners. However, public polls show evidence of heightened privacy concerns among Internet and social media users. We review the privacy literature based on protection motivation theory and the theory of planned behavior to develop an APCO model that incorporates novel factors that reflect users’ familiarity with big data. Our results, which we obtained from using a cross-sectional survey design and structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques, support most of our proposed hypotheses. Specifically, we found that that awareness of big data had a negative impact on and awareness of big data implications had a positive impact on privacy concerns. In turn, privacy concerns impacted self-disclosure concerns positively and self-disclosure accuracy negatively. We also considered other antecedents of privacy concerns and tested other alternative models to examine the mediating role of privacy concerns, to control for demographic variables, and to investigate different roles of the trust construct. Finally, we discuss the results of our findings and the theoretical and practical implications

Privacy Relinquishing and Safeguarding: When are Consumers Willing to Disclose or Protect Their Information?

This dissertation explores consumer privacy, an issue that has received substantial attention recently. The first aim of this dissertation is to redefine consumer privacy. Research in marketing has focused primarily on consumer privacy concern but has not explicitly defined consumer privacy itself. Further, research on consumer privacy has resulted in fragmented definitions, which are siloed across disciplines, organizations, ethical and legal realms. This fragmented approach to consumer privacy research has left more gaps than the answers it seeks to provide. A more fitting definition of privacy, conceptualized along a continuum of total exposure to total anonymity, is offered. Actual privacy is defined as an individual’s state or condition concerning the degree to which information about a person is not known by others and ranges on a continuum from total exposure (low privacy) to total anonymity (high privacy).” Further, a differentiation between actual privacy (i.e., an individual’s state of privacy) versus perceived privacy (i.e., an individual’s belief of their privacy state) is also presented. Perceived privacy is defined as the degree to which an individual believes that information about themselves is not known by others and ranges on a continuum from total exposure (low privacy) to total anonymity (high privacy). Also, a framework of consumer’s information privacy levels, consisting of seven levels, is presented. Knowledge of the different levels of consumers’ information privacy provides marketers with a definite approach on how to handle consumers’ information, and what level of privacy is most concerning for consumers. Finally, this dissertation reports the results of an experimental study (n = 631), conducted through Qualtrics. The study contained two parts. Part 1 was a 2 (relationship quality) x 2 (perceived convenience) between subjects design. Part 2 manipulated privacy violation. Data were analyzed using SEM. Results of part 1 show that relationship quality positively influences privacy relinquishing intentions and negatively influences privacy safeguarding intentions. Similarly, perceived convenience has a positive effect on relinquishing and a negative effect on safeguarding. In addition, disposition to value privacy has a moderating effect on the relationship between relationship quality and safeguarding intentions, where respondents in the high disposition to value privacy were less willing to relinquish information. Interestingly, respondents in the high disposition to value privacy reported lower intention to safeguard their privacy. This finding is consistent with the privacy paradox phenomena, which suggests that while consumers may express their concern for privacy, their behaviors are contradicting and do not employ any protective privacy measures. Results of part 2 show that privacy violation caused a positive effect on betrayal, and betrayal led to less privacy relinquishing intentions and high safeguarding intentions. Theoretical and managerial implications are also included

Building Trust Through Social Networking

Usage of social networking sites requires continuous trusting actions through the sharing of personal information. According to Social Cognitive Theory, such behavior and resulting experiences should have an impact on the beliefs that led to the behavior, namely trust. In this study, a model of how this process takes place and the results of a survey suggest that increasing usage of social networking sites increases disposition to trust, mediated by optimism, innovativeness, and trust in the social networking site. Implications of these findings are discussed

How religion influences the use of social media : the impact of the online user’s religiosity on perceived online privacy and the use of technology in Saudi Arabia.

Religion has a significant effect on people’s lives. It impacts human behaviour, thoughts, morale standards, attitudes and values. The literature shows that religiosity has an effect also on consumer behaviour. However, the concept of religiosity has been under-researched due to the sensitivity of religion (Swimberghe, Flurry, & Parker, 2011). According to Vitell (2009) there is still a need to develop a vigorous theoretical understanding of the impact of religiosity on the consumer behaviour. This thesis contributes to that knowledge by developing a model to explain the effect of the religiosity of the online user on their use of social media. Current research does not fully explain the specifics of religious influences on online user behaviours. This thesis main goal is to build a model that can measure the effect of intrinsic religiosity on the use of social media. The proposed model uses the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2) along with Privacy concern to measure the effect of religiosity on the use of social media. This thesis empirically tests the proposed model linking religiosity, privacy concerns, technology acceptance and the use of social media. Allport and Ross' (1967) religious orientation scale (ROS) is used to measure the intrinsic religiosity. Xu et al's., (2011a) model of privacy concern is used to measure privacy concerns when using social media. Venkatesh, Thong and Xu's (2012) unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2) is used to measure the user acceptance of social media. Using partial least square structural equation modelling, intrinsic religiosity (ROS), and privacy concerns along with technology acceptance are shown to influence the use of social media. The results show that religion has an indirect effect on the use of social media through privacy concerns and technology acceptance. The results also show that the model can predict the effect of intrinsic religiosity on the use of social media to share and disclose information. The implications from this study are significant both for policy and practice for social media companies as well as users. Information from this study will help social media companies to maximize users’ involvement with social media. It will also benefit the industry and the literature by providing a sound model that can measure the impact of religion on the behaviour of users