Critical roles of knowledge and motivation in privacy research

Abstract

Much research has focused on privacy concern, which describes individuals' motivation to protect personal information from unauthorized access, collection, storage, and use. Variation in privacy concern has been attributed to differences in three key factors: 1) chronic privacy attitudes, 2) information sensitivity, and 3) context. While each factor affects individuals' motivation to protect personal information, none of them explicitly accounts for differences in individuals' privacy knowledge (or privacy literacy), which consists of factual, procedural, or experiential familiarity with privacy-related issues. Calling attention to how little research has investigated both privacy concern and privacy literacy, we argue that understanding how knowledge and motivation interact is critical to accurately predicting how people will respond to privacy threats.