Measuring snooping behavior with surveys

Journal of Digital Social Research

The digital world is a field of information and entertainment for users and a field of extraction of the most valuable good of recent years: personal data. How much of a threat to privacy is the collection and processing of data by third parties and what do people think about it? On the occasion of the extensive methods of surveilling citizens and collecting their data, this study attempts to contribute new empirical data evidence from the international research on the use of the Internet by the World Internet Project on attitudes and behaviors of individuals regarding online privacy and surveillance. The aim is to determine whether and to what extent the recorded concerns about the violation of privacy intersects with a growing acceptance of its very absence.

Journal of Digital Social Research, 3(1), 119–152, 2021

The digital world is a field of information and entertainment for users and a field of extraction of the most valuable good of recent years: personal data. How much of a threat to privacy is the collection and processing of data by third parties and what do people think about it? On the occasion of the extensive methods of surveilling citizens and collecting their data, this study attempts to contribute new empirical data evidence from the international research on the use of the Internet by the World Internet Project on attitudes and behaviors of individuals regarding online privacy and surveillance. The aim is to determine whether and to what extent the recorded concerns about the violation of privacy intersects with a growing acceptance of its very absence.

Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 2014

An online experiment (n = 1,897) was carried out to understand how data disclosure practices in ubiquitous surveillance affect users' privacy concerns. Information about the identity and intentions of a data collector was manipulated in hypothetical surveillance scenarios. Privacy concerns were found to differ across the scenarios and moderated by knowledge about the collector's identity and intentions. Knowledge about intentions exhibited a stronger effect. When no information about intentions was disclosed, the respondents postulated negative intentions. A positive effect was found for disclosing neutral intentions of an organization or unknown data collector, but not for a private data collector. The findings underline the importance of disclosing intentions of data use to users in an easily understandable manner.

International Journal of Human-Computer Studies

The use of mobile applications continues to experience exponential growth. Using mobile apps typically requires the disclosure of location data, which often accompanies requests for various other forms of private information. Existing research on information privacy has implied that consumers are willing to accept privacy risks for relatively negligible benefits, and the offerings of mobile apps based on location-based services (LBS) appear to be no different. However, until now, researchers have struggled to replicate realistic privacy risks within experimental methodologies designed to manipulate independent variables. Moreover, minimal research has successfully captured actual information disclosure over mobile devices based on realistic risk perceptions. The purpose of this study is to propose and test a more realistic experimental methodology designed to replicate real perceptions of privacy risk and capture the effects of actual information disclosure decisions. As with prior research, this study employs a theoretical lens based on privacy calculus. However, we draw more detailed and valid conclusions due to our use of improved methodological rigor. We report the results of a controlled experiment involving consumers (n=1025) in a range of ages, levels of education, and employment experience. Based on our methodology, we find that only a weak, albeit significant, relationship exists between information disclosure intentions and actual disclosure. In addition, this relationship is heavily moderated by the consumer practice of disclosing false data. We conclude by discussing the contributions of our methodology and the possibilities for extending it for additional mobile privacy research.

Scientific Data

The breadcrumbs we leave behind when using our mobile phones-who somebody calls, for how long, and from where-contain unprecedented insights about us and our societies. Researchers have compared the recent availability of large-scale behavioral datasets, such as the ones generated by mobile phones, to the invention of the microscope, giving rise to the new field of computational social science.

Citizens' concerns about data privacy and data security breaches may reduce adoption of COVID-19 contact tracing mobile phone applications, making them less effective. We implement a choice experiment (conjoint experiment) where participants indicate which version of two contact tracing apps they would install, varying the apps' privacy-preserving attributes. Citizens do not always prioritize privacy and prefer a centralised National Health Service system over a decentralised system. In a further study asking about participants' preference for digital vs human-only contact tracing, we find a mixture of digital and human contact tracing is supported. We randomly allocated a subset of participants in each study to receive a stimulus priming data breach as a concern, before asking about contact tracing. Salient threat of unauthorised access or data theft does not significantly alter preferences in either study. We suggest COVID-19 and trust in a national public health service system mitigate respondents' concerns about privacy.

Mobile Networks and Applications

Our smartphone is full of applications and data that analytically organize, facilitate and describe our lives. We install applications for the most varied reasons, to inform us, to have fun and for work, but, unfortunately, we often install them without reading the terms and conditions of use. The result is that our privacy is increasingly at risk. Considering this scenario, in this paper, we analyze the user's perception towards privacy while using smartphone applications. In particular, we formulate two different hypotheses: 1) the perception of privacy is influenced by the knowledge of the data used by the installed applications; 2) applications access to much more data than they need. The study is based on two questionnaires (within-subject experiments with 200 volunteers) and on the lists of installed apps (30 volunteers). Results show a widespread abuse of data related to location, personal contacts, camera, Wi-Fi network list, running apps list, and vibration. An in-depth analysis shows that some features are more relevant to certain groups of users (e.g., adults are mainly worried about contacts and Wi-Fi connection lists; iOS users are sensitive to smartphone vibration; female participants are worried about possible misuse of the smartphone camera).

2021

Privacy is important for all individuals in everyday life. With emerging technologies, smartphones with AR, various social networking applications and artificial intelligence driven modes of surveillance, they tend to intrude privacy. This study aimed to explore and discover various concerns related to perception of privacy in this era of ubiquitous technologies. It employed online survey questionnaire to study user perspectives of privacy. Purposive sampling was used to collect data from 60 participants. Inductive thematic analysis was used to analyze data. Our study discovered key themes like attitude towards privacy in public and private spaces, privacy awareness, consent seeking, dilemmas/confusions related to various technologies, impact of attitude and beliefs on individuals’ actions regarding how to protect oneself from invasion of privacy in both public and private spaces. These themes interacted amongst themselves and influenced formation of various actions. They were like ...

Journal of Communication, 2011

Information technology and new media allow for collecting and sharing personal information at unprecedented levels. This study explores issues of privacy and surveillance with new interactive technologies. Based on a year-long field study, this project examines how people think about privacy and surveillance when using mobile social networks. Using the case of Dodgeball, the study found that most informants were not concerned about privacy when using the mobile social network because they felt they were in control of their personal information. There was, however, evidence of 3 kinds of surveillance present in everyday usage of Dodgeball: voluntary panopticon, lateral surveillance, and self-surveillance. This study sheds light on the everyday conceptions, meanings, and activities associated with surveillance, privacy, and interactive technologies.

2005

Abstract We present an analysis of privacy attitudes and practices in Instant Messaging based on responses to an online questionnaire. On a 7-point Likert scale, the reported concern about IM privacy spanned the whole range, with the average being slightly below" medium". Respondents' justifications for privacy concerns revealed that the main contributing factors were: sensitivity of content, personal disposition towards privacy, understanding of technology, and potential persistence of conversations.