Investigating loan applicants' perceptions of alternative data items and the effect of incentives on disclosure

Lenders use information about loan applicants to predict whether a person is a good or bad credit risk; however borrowers express reservations about disclosing their personal information. In this paper we describe the design of a study in which we try to identify which data items have bigger privacy costs for individuals and whether it is possible to adjust lenders' data collection procedures in order to improve the privacy of the borrowers while maintaining or improving the accuracy of risk assessment methods. We aim to explore whether consumers could be equitably encouraged to give different information than they do presently, by offering incentives for disclosures. These incentives are: an uncertain long term financial gain; a certain short term financial gain. We also explore an inequitable manipulation using peer pressure. The advantages and disadvantages of this methodological approach are also discussed

Federated identity to access e-government services - are citizens ready for this?

Both the US & UK government have decided that citizens will to authenticate to government using Federated Identity (FedID) solutions: governments do not want to be Identity providers (IdPs), but leverage accounts that citizens have with other service providers instead. We investigated how citizens react to their first encounter FedID authentication in this context. We performed 2 studies using low fidelity prototypes with: in study 1, 44 citizen participants, & in study 2, 22 small business owners, employees & agents. We recorded their reactions during their user journey authenticating with 3rd party providers they already had accounts with. In study 1, 50% of participants said they would not continue to use the system on reaching the hub page, & 45% believed they were being asked to make a payment. 25% of those continuing said they would stop when they reached the consent page, where they were asked by their IdP to authorise the release of their identifying information to the government service. 34% of the participants felt threatened rather than reassured by the privacy protection statement. With study 2's improved prototype, only 14% of participants said they would not continue on reaching the hub page, & 6% abandoned at the consent page. Our results show that usability & acceptance of FedID can be greatly improved by the application of standard HCI techniques, but trust in the ID Provider is essential. We finally report results from a survey of which ID providers UK citizens would trust, & found significant differences between age groups. © 2013 ACM

Adding insult to injury: consumer experiences of being denied credit

To inspire confidence in consumer credit and improve outcomes for consumers, negative experiences such as being denied credit must be handled appropriately. We conducted an online survey with 298 UK citizens who had a credit application denied to gain a better understanding of their experience of being denied credit. We found that privacy issues make this experience more upsetting for consumers than necessary. When being denied credit, respondents are most concerned about (1) being denied credit ‘in public’; and (2) not being informed about the reasons why they are denied. Only 23% of our respondents knew why they had been denied; 116 (62%) believed they had been denied credit because of their credit record, but 28% had never checked it. Out of the 194 respondents who had checked their record, 38 identified errors in their credit reports, and in 14 of these cases (38%) debts that they had paid off were incorrectly listed as outstanding. Based on our findings, we propose several changes to the credit application process: (1) providing sensitive but helpful information in a private manner, e.g. a preview of their credit score before they commit a loan application; (2) credit denial notifications with information on what to do next; and (3) giving applicants more information about checking their credit report and who to contact for correcting errors

Would You Sell Your Mother's Data? Personal Data Disclosure in a Simulated Credit Card Application.

To assess the risk of a loan applicant defaulting, lenders feed applicants‟ data into credit scoring algorithms. They are always looking to improve the effectiveness of their predictions, which means improving the algorithms and/or collecting different data. Research on financial behavior found that elements of a person‟s family history and social ties can be good predictors of financial responsibility and control. Our study investigated how loan applicants applying for a credit card would respond to questions such as “Did any of your loved ones die while you were growing up?” 48 participants were asked to complete a new type of credit card application form containing such requests as part of a “Consumer Acceptance Test” of a credit card with lower interest rates, but only available to “financially responsible customers.” This was a double-blind study – the experimenters processing participants were told exactly the same. We found that: (1) more sensitive items are disclosed less often - e.g. friends‟ names and contact had only a 69% answer rate; (2) privacy fundamentalists are 5.6 times less likely to disclose data; and (3) providing a justification for a question has no effect on its answer rate. Discrepancies between acceptability and disclosure were observed – e.g. 43% provided names and contact of friends, having said they found the question unacceptable. We conclude that collecting data items not traditionally seen as relevant could be made acceptable if lenders can credibly establish relevance, and assure applicants they will be assessed fairly. More research needs to be done on how to best communicate these qualities

Too close for comfort: A study of the effectiveness and acceptability of rich-media personalized advertising

Online display advertising is predicted to make $29.53 billion this year. Advertisers believe targeted and personalized ads to be more effective, but many users are concerned about their privacy. We conducted a study where 30 participants completed a simulated holiday booking task; each page showing ads with different degrees of personalization. Participants fixated twice as long when ads contained their photo. Participants reported being more likely to notice ads with their photo, holiday destination, and name, but also increasing levels of discomfort with increasing personalization. We conclude that greater personalization in ad content may achieve higher levels of attention, but that the most personalized ads are also the least acceptable. The noticeability benefit in using someone‟s photo to make them look at an ad may be offset by the privacy cost. As more personal data becomes available to advertisers, it becomes important that these trade-offs are considered

Fair play:Perceived fairness in crowdsourcing competitions and the customer relationship-related consequences

TeleRehab enables the rehabilitation services to be delivered in distance by providing information exchange between patient with disabilities and the clinical professionals. The readiness step in any adoption of healthcare services should always be one of the requirements for a successful implementation of an innovation. However, little scholarly has been undertaken to study its influence on TeleRehab and the various barrier factors that influence its adoption. This research explores the barrier factors that influence the readiness of healthcare institution to adopt TeleRehab. This paper presents a semi-structured interview involving 23 clinical professionals of a case study on the issues of TeleRehab readiness in one rehabilitation centre in Malaysia. By applying thematic analysis, the study uncovers seven barriers that affect the TeleRehab readiness. This includes barriers of no urgency to change, less awareness, less involvement in planning, not enough exposure on e-Healthcare knowledge, resistance to change, low usage of hardware and software, and less connectivity. The study contributes to both TeleRehab management and technology readiness research in hospitals

Comparing league formats with respect to match importance in Belgian football

Recently, most clubs in the highest Belgian football division have become convinced that the format of their league should be changed. Moreover, the TV station that broadcasts the league is pleading for a more attractive competition. However, the clubs have not been able to agree on a new league format, mainly because they have conflicting interests. In this paper, we compare the current league format, and three other formats that have been considered by the Royal Belgian Football Association. We simulate the course of each of these league formats, based on historical match results. We assume that the attractiveness of a format is determined by the importance of its games; our importance measure for a game is based on the number of teams for which this game can be decisive to reach a given goal. Furthermore, we provide an overview of how each league format aligns with the expectations and interests of each type of club

The design-by-adaptation approach to universal access: learning from videogame technology

This paper proposes an alternative approach to the design of universally accessible interfaces to that provided by formal design frameworks applied ab initio to the development of new software. This approach, design-byadaptation, involves the transfer of interface technology and/or design principles from one application domain to another, in situations where the recipient domain is similar to the host domain in terms of modelled systems, tasks and users. Using the example of interaction in 3D virtual environments, the paper explores how principles underlying the design of videogame interfaces may be applied to a broad family of visualization and analysis software which handles geographical data (virtual geographic environments, or VGEs). One of the motivations behind the current study is that VGE technology lags some way behind videogame technology in the modelling of 3D environments, and has a less-developed track record in providing the variety of interaction methods needed to undertake varied tasks in 3D virtual worlds by users with varied levels of experience. The current analysis extracted a set of interaction principles from videogames which were used to devise a set of 3D task interfaces that have been implemented in a prototype VGE for formal evaluation