Security Watch | Matt Hines » Consumers worry about data sharing, not collection

May 31, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Consumers worry about data sharing, not collection

TAGS: Security

With identity theft still a raging problem and the Google-Doubleclick merger holding out the prospect of mega-consolidation in the online identity tracking business, both the private and public sectors are proposing action to stiffen laws protecting privacy and preventing identity theft. But what do ordinary consumers really want when it comes to data privacy? That's a much fuzzier issue, about which there's been very little research. Thanks, though, to the folks over at Emergent Chaos for pointing out a recent study by Harvard Business School about one study that attempts to figure out what, exactly, consumers have in mind when they consider data privacy rights.

"An Empirical Approach to Understanding Privacy Valuation," by Luc Wathieu of Harvard Business School and Allan Friedman of the Kennedy School of Government surveyed 647 people selected randomly from a database of 10,000 research subjects about their reaction to a variety of scenarios involving the dissemination of their personal information for commercial purposes.

The researchers were trying to measure participants' reaction to the sharing of their data in different scenarios: one in which sharing personal data helps the consumer access special money saving offers, and an intermediate scenario in which sharing data exposes the consumer to hassle from marketers and a scenario in which sharing data might indirectly lead to harm (i.e. identity theft).

Their conclusions: Consumers are more concerned with how their data is used, than the fact that it is shared in the first place.

"The privacy concern does not revolve around unitary “atoms” of personal data," the authors note. In fact, the consumers studied suggested that most consumers aren't concerned so much with the flow of their data as with how it is used after it is obtained.

"While we can draw no conclusions based on any specific mechanisms of society-wide control, we do find evidence that there is consumer demand for some social control, and that control should focus on data use," the study concludes.

The U.S. is without strong, federal data privacy laws, outside of regulated industries like financial services and healthcare, although there have been repeated efforts to pass such laws. The results of the study tend to support efforts like those of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development to protect personal data flows.

Posted by Paul Roberts on May 31, 2007 10:44 AM

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