Enabling Comparative Analysis of Privacy Expectation-Risk Misalignments in Exposure-sensitive Populations
Abstract
Project goal: This project will develop and validate a new research instrument enabling quanti-tative and comparative assessment of exposure-sensitive populations’ privacy expectations and behaviors, in particular how those are misaligned with objective privacy risks. Background: People’s privacy expectations and behavior are often misaligned with objective privacy risks. For certain populations (e.g., immigrants, religious minorities, older adults) result-ing unanticipated information exposure can lead to harassment, exploitation, or physical harm. While privacy expectations of some exposure-sensitive populations have been investigated, studies are often small, and findings are qualitative and difficult to generalize or compare across populations. Yet, comparative assessments are essential to understand which privacy ex-pectation-risk misalignments are population-specific, general, or individual; and to tailor pri-vacy-enhancing mitigations accordingly to best meet the privacy needs of specific populations. Proposed work: A new survey instrument will be developed and validated that will enable (1) quantitative assessment of populations’ privacy expectations and practices; (2) analysis of misa-lignments between a population’s privacy expectations/behavior and objective privacy risks; and (3) quantitative cross-population comparison and extrapolation of which expectations, practices, and misalignments are population-specific, general, or individual. The survey instru-ment will elicit general privacy attitudes and scenario-specific privacy expectations and prac-tices. Scenarios will cover technology interactions with a range of privacy dimensions to form construct scales. Survey instrument development will be informed by qualitative research and scenario-specific privacy risk assessment, and subsequent quantitative validation of the devel-oped instrument. Validation will include exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, as well as triangulation with participants’ behavioral indicators (e.g., privacy settings, posting behavior) to assess predictive power and construct validity. To ensure cross-population applicability and ex-trapolation, the research will be conducted with three exposure-sensitive populations in the United States (immigrants, religious minorities, older adults). The base period (years 1 and 2) will produce a validated survey instrument for studying privacy expectation-risk misalignments in exposure-sensitive populations. The optional period (year 3) will utilize the developed instru-ment in a large-scale cross-population study with representative samples of these three expo-sure-sensitive populations and the general population to produce new knowledge on which pri-vacy expectations, practices, and misalignments are population-specific, general, or individual. Novelty and impact: This project will transform privacy research with exposure-sensitive popu-lations by enabling the quantitative, generalizable, and comparative assessment of populations’ privacy expectations, privacy practices, and the analysis of misalignments between those ex-pectations and behavior with objective privacy risks. This will enable cross-population compari-son and extrapolation of which expectations, practices, and expectation-risk misalignments are population-specific, general, or individual. These novel insights will provide data-driven guid-ance for whether and how privacy-enhancing mitigations have to be tailored to the needs of specific exposure-sensitive populations.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jul 08, 2021
- Source ID
- HR00112010010
Entities
People
- Florian Schaub
Organizations
- Board of Regents of the University of Michigan
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency