Understanding age-related differences in privacy-safety decisions: Acceptance of crime surveillance technologies in urban environments

Abstract

Although crime surveillance technologies (CST) are incrementally used in cities all over the world to improve safety, critics and data privacy specialists fear a rising violation of urban residents’ privacy. So far, research on CST neither focuses in-depth on their acceptance nor addresses different user diversity factors. To reach a high degree of CST acceptance, not only technical parts are of importance but also human aspects and the way in which CST meet the residents’ needs. In this paper, we present the results of a conjoint analysis (CA) study regarding the acceptance of CST with special focus on the residents’ age and including the attributes locations, reduction in crime rates (safety), handling of recorded footage (privacy), and camera type. Age-specific similarities and differences in respondents’ preferences were revealed.