Privacy paradox in the mobile environment: The influence of the emotions

Abstract

The privacy paradox designates the contradiction between a negative perception of online privacy exploitation by users and a relaxed or passive attitude of users towards the protection of their digital privacy. Since regulation alone is not sufficient to effectively manage the digital privacy problem, promoting responsible, conscious and active behaviour towards the protection of one's own online privacy is a key element of the digital ecosystem. In this sense, understanding and helping to eliminate the privacy paradox have been research and policy objectives for digital services since the beginning of this century, which has intensified with the development of Big Data and AI. However, the existing literature has approached the privacy paradox from the perspective of perceived benefit and thus from a rational calculus perspective. This paper, in contrast, approaches the study of the privacy paradox from the perspective of emotions, their nature (active versus passive emotions) and their intensity (high or moderate). The paper develops a complex structured questionnaire with a relevant international sample of digital users. The aim is to measure the emotional response (intensity and nature of emotions involved) to an incident of unauthorised disclosure of their private data (data breach), comparing this response with the behaviour of changing privacy settings and the propensity to allow access to personal data by using the mobile device in their applications/social networks. The paper concludes that there is a clear disconnect between informational behavioural decisions about privacy management and emotions associated with perceptions of privacy in social networks and mobile apps, even when these are more intense or active in nature. This emotional dissociation reinforces the mechanics of the privacy paradox, making it difficult to intervene to promote consistent digital behaviours. The candidate has been involved in the development of the state of the question, the conceptual framework and the design of the questionnaire, as well as in the analysis of the results and the drawing of conclusions.

The increasing relevance of personal information has sparked a broad debate on privacy issues on the ubiquitous Internet. The so called ‘privacy paradox’ aims to explain through rational decision-making models the contradictions between stated digital privacy concerns and the actual behaviors in mobile platforms. An analysis of the emotions that arise when users know about unauthorized personal data disclosure is proposed. A survey of smartphone users was conducted shortly after the Cambridge Analytica / Facebook scandal took place, in order to analyze the nature and intensity of a user’s emotions in relation to their knowledge of privacy breaches. The results support the paradox of privacy from an emotional perspective: although the reported emotions are intense, there is no relationship between the management that users make of their privacy settings in social networks and mobile applications and the nature and intensity of the emotions reported.