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Ethics and Information Technology

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01.12.2012 | Original Paper

Information technology and privacy: conceptual muddles or privacy vacuums?

verfasst von: Kirsten Martin

Erschienen in: Ethics and Information Technology | Ausgabe 4/2012

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Abstract

Within a given conversation or information exchange, do privacy expectations change based on the technology used? Firms regularly require users, customers, and employees to shift existing relationships onto new information technology, yet little is known as about how technology impacts established privacy expectations and norms. Coworkers are asked to use new information technology, users of gmail are asked to use GoogleBuzz, patients and doctors are asked to record health records online, etc. Understanding how privacy expectations change, if at all, and the mechanisms by which such a variance is produced will help organizations make such transitions. This paper examines whether and how privacy expectations change based on the technological platform of an information exchange. The results suggest that privacy expectations are significantly distinct when the information exchange is located on a novel technology as compared to a more established technology. Furthermore, this difference is best explained when modeled by a shift in privacy expectations rather than fully technology-specific privacy norms. These results suggest that privacy expectations online are connected to privacy offline with a different base privacy expectation. Surprisingly, out of the five locations tested, respondents consistently assign information on email the greatest privacy protection. In addition, while undergraduate students differ from non-undergraduates when assessing a social networking site, no difference is found when judging an exchange on email. In sum, the findings suggest that novel technology may introduce temporary conceptual muddles rather than permanent privacy vacuums. The results reported here challenge conventional views about how privacy expectations differ online versus offline. Traditionally, management scholarship examines privacy online or with a specific new technology platform in isolation and without reference to the same information exchange offline. However, in the present study, individuals appear to have a shift in their privacy expectations but retain similar factors and their relative importance—the privacy equation by which they form judgments—across technologies. These findings suggest that privacy scholarship should make use of existing privacy norms within contexts when analyzing and studying privacy in a new technological platform.

Vorheriger Artikel Virtual worlds and moral evaluation

Nächster Artikel Elicitation of situated values: need for tools to help stakeholders and designers to reflect and communicate

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This negotiation over privacy norms is not synonymous with privacy as a commodity (Smith et al. 2011), a privacy calculus (Culnan and Armstrong 1999; Dinev and Hart 2006), or a second exchange (Culnan and Bies 2003), all of which assume individuals relinquish privacy in order to gain something in return. In other words, individuals are seen as giving up some measure of privacy to benefit from a transaction (e.g., customizing products or using electronic health records or having books suggested online). In this paper, the negotiation is over the privacy norm function; actors within a context negotiate what the privacy rules will be while retaining every expectation of privacy.

In comparison, in experiments, factors are designed orthogonal to each other but manipulated one at a time; however, in a traditional survey, many factors are examined but are not necessarily orthogonal to each other (Appelbaum et al. 2006).

Individuals regularly give access to information to people or organizations while keeping the same information from others. Alternatively, the restricted access version of privacy—where information that is inaccessible is private and that which is accessible is public –supports a dichotomy where information can be universally declared ‘public’ or ‘private.’ Many find the distinction to be false (Solove 2006; Nissenbaum 2004, 2009; Tufekci 2008) and “the idea of two distinct spheres, of the ‘public’ and the ‘private’ is in many ways an outdated concept” (Marwick et al. 2010). Or, as Nissenbaum states, “the crucial issue is not whether the information is private or public, gathered from private or public settings, but whether the action breaches contextual integrity” (2004, p. 134).

Respondent fatigue was a factor for some respondent groups. Two dummy variables were created to signify vignette ratings with a sequence number over 30 and over 20. If the ordinal regression model demonstrated a significant impact on the rating task by either dummy variable, those associated vignette ratings were discarded for that model. The regression was rerun without the offending data. However, a larger design issue came from the respondents’ learning curve—presumably from the novelty of the survey design. Once the first two vignette ratings for each respondent (sequence numbers 1 and 2) were discarded for all respondents, the model fit criteria and parallel lines assumptions improved dramatically. all vignette ratings were discarded with a sequence number of 1 or 2 for the entire analysis.

The rating task in the survey was a five-level ordinal scale (0–4) as is shown in the “Appendix”, however the distribution of the ratings was not normal around the mean. The top three levels (0–2) were combined to create a new scale with three levels coded 1–3. The user was not, however, given an option to answer “I don’t know” or “I need more information.” The user could skip a vignette and continue.

In order to examine respondent level factors with OLS regression equations for each respondent, a minimum number of ratings per respondents was required. Therefore, all respondents were dropped who answered less than 20 vignettes and removed their ratings from the larger data set of vignette ratings. Therefore, the number of respondents used in this study is 471 (rather than 811) and the total number of vignette rated is 15,108 (rather than 21,187).

For ordinal variables, the outcome is at or below given outcome Y _j. Ordinal dependent variables– such as the traditional Likert scale rating task used here—do not necessarily meet the assumptions required of traditional OLS models (O’Connell 2005; Kennedy, 2003) which impacts analysis below.

Each respondent equation is based on between 20 and 40 rated vignettes (N = number of vignettes). Each OLS regression equation was performed using clustered and unclustered regression with no significant difference. In addition, neither the undergraduate status or gender were statistically significant determinants of the number of vignettes rated.

Ideally, experience with each technology platform would also be used here, however, experience with email or Facebook was not collected in the survey. Undergraduate status may be an imprecise proxy for experience with Facebook.

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Titel: Information technology and privacy: conceptual muddles or privacy vacuums?
verfasst von: Kirsten Martin
Publikationsdatum: 01.12.2012
Verlag: Springer Netherlands
Erschienen in: Ethics and Information Technology / Ausgabe 4/2012
Print ISSN: 1388-1957
Elektronische ISSN: 1572-8439
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-012-9300-3

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