Trusting Your Bank in a Digitally Connected World: An Investigation into Perceptions of Privacy by Bank Customers

People are placing more of their personal information online as the use of online social networking sites (OSNs) grows. Individuals often lack an awareness around the privacy implications of placing their personal information on these sites but still have an expectation of privacy about this information that may not entirely be justified. OSN data is often used for purposes other than those for which it was provided, but customer demand for ethical and compassionate use of their data is growing. Customers expect greater corporate social responsibility from companies, and especially banks, after the recent global financial crisis. Customers may perceive the use of OSN data by New Zealand banks to influence their lending decisions as a privacy violation. This study is intended to evaluate whether this use of OSN data would be perceived by customers to be a violation of their privacy. The research was carried out through a web-based survey and follow-up interviews with selected respondents. It was found that the less aware that respondents were about OSN privacy policies, the greater their expectation of privacy. The research also highlighted that even respondents who did not expect their data to remain private still had an expectation of privacy. A lack of perceived control was found to be associated with a greater expectation of a privacy invasion. Trust in respondents' banks was associated with a negative perception of those banks' use of OSN data for lending decisions. This study has revealed a high likelihood that a perception of betrayal coupled with a perceived privacy violation would take place should New Zealand Banks use OSN data in this manner

Big Data, Small Credit: The Digital Revolution and Its Impact on Emerging Market Consumers

This research report sheds light on a new cadre of technology companies who are disrupting the credit scoring business in emerging markets. Using non-financial data -- such as social media activity and mobile phone usage patterns -- complex algorithms and big data analytics are forever changing the economics of how we identify, score, and underwrite credit to consumers who have been invisible to lenders until now

Libraries, Electronic Resources, and Privacy: The Case for Positive Intellectual Freedom

Public and research libraries have long provided resources in electronic formats, and the tension between providing electronic resources and patron privacy is widely recognized. But assessing trade-offs between privacy and access to electronic resources remains difficult. One reason is a conceptual problem regarding intellectual freedom. Traditionally, the LIS literature has plausibly understood privacy as a facet of intellectual freedom. However, while certain types of electronic resource use may diminish patron privacy, thereby diminishing intellectual freedom, the opportunities created by such resources also appear liberty-enhancing. Adjudicating between privacy loss and enhanced opportunities on intellectual freedom grounds must therefore provide an account of intellectual freedom capable of addressing both privacy and opportunity. I will argue that intellectual freedom is a form of positive freedom, where a person’s freedom is a function of the quality of her agency. Using this view as the lodestar, I articulate several principles for assessing adoption of electronic resources and privacy protections

Trust and privacy in distributed work groups

Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Social Computing, Behavioral Modeling and PredictionTrust plays an important role in both group cooperation and economic exchange. As new technologies emerge for communication and exchange, established mechanisms of trust are disrupted or distorted, which can lead to the breakdown of cooperation or to increasing fraud in exchange. This paper examines whether and how personal privacy information about members of distributed work groups influences individuals' cooperation and privacy behavior in the group. Specifically, we examine whether people use others' privacy settings as signals of trustworthiness that affect group cooperation. In addition, we examine how individual privacy preferences relate to trustworthy behavior. Understanding how people interact with others in online settings, in particular when they have limited information, has important implications for geographically distributed groups enabled through new information technologies. In addition, understanding how people might use information gleaned from technology usage, such as personal privacy settings, particularly in the absence of other information, has implications for understanding many potential situations that arise in pervasively networked environments.Preprin