Internet users’ perceptions of information sensitivity – insights from Germany

Abstract

With the ever-increasing collection of user data, online privacy becomes an urgent matter for users and research across borders. The perception of information sensitivity is central to privacy attitudes and behaviors in different usage contexts. In an online questionnaire, n = 592 German internet users evaluated how sensitive they perceive 40 different data types. The German sensitivity evaluations revealed in this study are compared to results from the US and Brazil (Markos et al., 2017), in order to understand the cultural impact on evaluations. Additionally, we analyze how attitudes and demographic characteristics of the German sample influence the perception of sensitivity on an individual level. Some distinct differences in sensitivity perception between Germany, Brazil, and the US can be observed, but the rank orders of sensitivity of data types is very similar between the countries, indicating that there is a consensus on what constitutes sensitivity across nations. On an individual level, disposition to value privacy, risk propensity, and education level influence the perception of sensitivity. The findings contribute to an understanding of how to design information and communication strategies to inform internet users how to manage their data carefully.