Delphi study of risk to individuals who disclose personal information online

David Haynes,Lyn Robinson

doi:10.1177/0165551521992756

Abstract

A two-round Delphi study was conducted to explore priorities for addressing online risk to individuals. A corpus of literature was created based on 69 peer-reviewed articles about privacy risk and the privacy calculus published between 2014 and 2019. A cluster analysis of the resulting text-base using Pearson’s correlation coefficient resulted in seven broad topics. After two rounds of the Delphi survey with experts in information security and information literacy, the following topics were identified as priorities for further investigation: personalisation versus privacy, responsibility for privacy on social networks, measuring privacy risk, and perceptions of powerlessness and the resulting apathy. The Delphi approach provided clear conclusions about research topics and has potential as a tool for prioritising future research areas.

Highlights

The objectives of this study were twofold: (1) to examine statements about online privacy risk from the research literature and (2) to identify areas where there is no consensus and which could be prioritised for further research
The study was part of a 2-year investigation into the nature of risk in a privacy calculus and was prompted by the perception that there needs to be a way of categorising personal risks online [1]
The interquartile ranges (IQRs) was defined as the interval of values within which 50% of the responses were recorded

Summary

Introduction

The study was part of a 2-year investigation into the nature of risk in a privacy calculus and was prompted by the perception that there needs to be a way of categorising personal risks online [1]. These findings could be applied in several areas, such as public safety, informing policy making and feeding into a better understanding of the potential for personal insurance in cybersecurity. Based on interviews with subjects, several hypotheses are tested to establish the relationship between perceived risks and benefits and willingness to disclose personal information online [2] This has been extended by some researchers to test behaviour in controlled environments [3,4].

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion