The Impact of Risk Appeal Approaches on Users' Sharing Confidential Information

Abstract

End-to-end encrypted email can help users prevent unauthorized access of their sensitive information. However, many users struggle to utilize encryption tools due to usability issues and low understanding. Thus, we designed video messaging interventions to persuade users to use email encryption software (Virtru). Our first intervention combined Protection Motivation Theory with Anticipated Regret (PMT+AR), and was designed to help participants understand the benefits of using encrypted email. Our second intervention also included Action Planning (PMT+AR+AP), and was designed to help participants recognize opportunities to use encrypted email. We conducted online interviews with 121 participants and used a follow-up survey to evaluate our interventions. Pre-intervention, participants believed that Gmail encrypted standard email content by default. Post-intervention, both messages made participants more likely to utilize encrypted email in a simulated information sharing scenario compared to Control. Our results suggest that our interventions can help people adopt protective technologies and address their misconceptions about them.