E-privacy concerns: a facet theoretical approach

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

Although the ubiquitous use of smartphones and social media poses serious risks to the privacy of users, research is sparse regarding how users perceive these risks. We present a study investigating the perception of e-privacy risks, assuming that risk perception depends on context and situation, and employing a facet theory approach to define and analyze privacy risk perceptions. Specifically, we define three facets that characterize situations involving an e-privacy risk: Facet A refers to the type of data disclosed, distinguishing three types: a person’s identity information, information about health, and information about private activities. Facet B refers to the type of actor misusing the information, distinguishing between commercial organizations, public authorities, social networks, and criminal actors. Facet C distinguishes three kinds of harm that might be experienced as a consequence: financial loss, physical harm, and negative psycho-social experiences. Questionnaire items were constructed by creating fictitious but realistic scenarios, each representing a combination of one element from each facet, yielding 36 (3 × 4 × 3) scenarios. For each scenario, respondents rated the likelihood and the negativity of experiencing that scenario. Following the facet theoretical paradigm, item intercorrelations were analyzed via ordinal multidimensional scaling. Results from a representative survey among 500 adult Norwegians yield a distinct partitioning with respect to Facets A and B, called a radex configuration. Facet B (actors) shows an angular partition. Facet C (type of harm) yields a contrast of financial versus psycho-social harm. In sum, we conclude that our three-faceted definition provides a satisfying first approximation to people’s perception of privacy risks on the Internet while remaining open for extensions with additional facets.

Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of Risk Research
Volume27
Issue number1
Pages (from-to)1-20
Number of pages20
ISSN1366-9877
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

    Research areas

  • data protection, E-privacy, facet theory, risk perception, social media
  • Business psychology

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. Web 2.0 Tasks in Action
  2. Non-technical success factors for bioenergy projects-Learning from a multiple case study in Japan
  3. Is the market classification of risk always efficient?
  4. German Utilities and Distributed PV
  5. TANGO: A reliable, open-source, browser-based task to assess individual differences in gaze understanding in 3 to 5-year-old children and adults
  6. Optimal scheduling for Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV) in blocking job-shops
  7. Categorizing urban tasks
  8. Do Linguistic Features Influence Item Difficulty in Physics Assessments?
  9. Electrical and Mechanical Characterization of Polymer Nanofibers for Sensor Application
  10. Methods and compositions relating to a vaccine against prostate cancer
  11. Firm size and the use of export intermediaries.
  12. Planning for Sea Spaces I
  13. Artificial Intelligence as a cultural technique
  14. A microsystem for growth inhibition test of Enterococcus faecalis based on impedance measurement
  15. Einführung in die systemnahe Programmierung
  16. A control strategy for electromagnetic near and far field calculation
  17. What if this was a piece of art
  18. A new method for collecting agile tiger beetles by live pitfall trapping
  19. Gamen
  20. Structuring Sustainability Reports for Environmental Standards with LLMs guided by Ontology
  21. Variational pragmatics
  22. HAWK@QALD5 - Trying to answer hybrid questions with various simple ranking techniques
  23. Construction of Container Terminal 4
  24. Digitale Transformation, quo vadis?
  25. Von Differenz zu Vielfalt zu Super-Diversity
  26. Testing Lazear's Jack-of-all-trades
  27. Looking at Figures and Fabrics with a ‘Period Eye’
  28. How digital reflection and feedback environments contribute to pre-service teachers’ beliefs during a teaching practicum
  29. Crowdsourcing
  30. Mit allen Kindern durch Anwendungsorientierung zu mathematischen Strukturen