Privacy risk perceptions and privacy protection strategies

Abstract

Several opinion polls have reported that many people claim to be concerned about their privacy, yet that most people in fact do very little to protect their privacy. Are privacy concerns indeed insufficient motivators to adopt privacy protection strategies? What then characterizes the users of these strategies? On the basis of a large scale survey amongst Dutch students, this paper explores the relation between privacy risk perception and privacy protection strategies in more detail. It elaborates on factors that constitute privacy risk perception, as well as three kinds of strategies adopted by individuals to protect their privacy: behavioral measures, common privacy enhancing technologies (PETs), and more complex PETs. Next, it explores the relation between the respondents' perception and the strategies they employ in more detail to answer the question what characteristics the users of the various strategies have in terms of perception, gender and age. Gender appears not to influence privacy risk perception, yet men are more familiar with the various privacy protection strategies and use them more often than women. In general, a higher privacy risk perception does not lead to the adoption of stronger or more protection strategies, except for the use of pseudonyms, cookie crunchers, anonymous email, safe email, and providing false personal data. Our analysis deepens the understanding of privacy risk perception and privacy protection strategies, yet leaves the privacy paradox unresolved. © 2008 International Federation for Information Processing.