The Overlooked Dimension of Privacy

The introduction of AI-based technologies has dramatically altered the premises for consumer privacy, enabling the unprecedented manipulation of consumers’ decision-making online. Given these recent threats to consumer privacy and autonomy, and considering autonomy as the ultimate outcome of privacy, I propose that a reconceptualization is warranted to reflect contemporary consumer privacy challenges and to realign the concept with its theoretical foundations. To this end, I introduce the dimension of decisional privacy, focused on autonomy versus interference in consumer decision-making. Building on previous privacy literature and extending previous theorizing about information privacy and decisional privacy as complementary, I posit that these two dimensions of privacy together comprise consumer privacy. Addressing protection from interference as an under-communicated function of consumer privacy, the paper aims to clarify, exemplify, and engage in the conceptual development of decisional privacy in the context of consumer decision-making online. In addition to its significance for consumer wellbeing and democracy collectively, the extension of consumer privacy to explicitly encompass interference has theoretical implications for privacy concern, the proxy used to measure privacy, yielding important insights for marketing scholars and practitioners.

Global e-commerce has become a reality for many as a result of the worldwide reach of the web. Although personal information privacy concerns have been around for hundreds of years, the introduction of global e-commerce and its associated technologies presents privacy concerns anew. The Global 500 companies are expected to be leaders in the use of technologies and business practices. This preliminary study examines web sites of the Global 500 and shows that different countries greatly vary in their use of privacy policies on their web sites and their use of seal programs as visible signs of attention to privacy concerns. Web sites from 12 of the 25 countries represented in the Global 500 have no privacy policies. Slightly more than 30% of Global 500 Web sites provide privacy policies or appropriate links to policies on their home pages. Comprehensive privacy policies to address all privacy dimensions (notice, choice, access, and data security) are less common. In addition, Privacy's notice dimension has drawn the most attention from each continent, yet more than one-half of the Global 500 Web sites who have privacy policies failed to address the access element of the privacy dimension.

Background: Patients’ privacy is an important ethical responsibility in medicine and an inseparable part of treatment. Children’s privacy is no exception. Children’s rights to privacy are recognized under the Children’s Rights Convention as part of good medical practice. Objectives: Few studies have examined children’s privacy in Iran or in other countries. Thus, the present study was designed to investigate views expressed by relatives who accompanied sick children to the hospital about various aspects of the children’s privacy. Methods: In this descriptive cross-sectional study, data on two dimensions of privacy (informational privacy and physical privacy) of children in pediatric wards were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire from 90 individuals who accompanied children (90 children, 57.8% boys and 38.9% girls) to hospitals (Imam Hossein and Mofid) affiliated to Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. The data were analyzed using SPSS-18 software. Pearson’s correlation coefficients were calculated, and t-tests and ANOVAs were performed. Results: With regard to the two dimensions of privacy, informational privacy was respected more than physical privacy. No significant relationship was observed between the observance of privacy and duration of the hospital stay or admission ward, but there was significant linear correlation between the number of beds in a room and informational and physical privacy. The mean score for respecting privacy increased in accordance with the child’s age, with the overall mean score significantly higher in the 11 - 14-y age group than the other age groups. Information disclosure occurred mainly through conversations with parents (52.2%) and during rounds (30%). Very little information disclosure (1.1%) occurred via discussions between personnel and discussions with parents. Hospital authorities investigated 40% of complaints about privacy violations or disclosure of a sick child’s information. Conclusions: The results showed that the level of respect for informational privacy was relatively acceptable. However, the level of respect for physical privacy was poor. Therefore, it is essential to provide appropriate training on the issue of children’s privacy, especially physical privacy (e.g., using separate rooms and ensuring that medical staff knock before entering a room), and to ensure that rules governing children’s privacy are followed.

This paper delves into dimensions of privacy within the African context, especially in relation to Learning Analytics (LA) in higher education. It highlights how prevailing notions of privacy, influenced by Global North perspectives, may not fully encapsulate the cultural and contextual nuances in Africa. Through phenomenological interpretive research, the study gathers insights from 13 African higher education experts, revealing that African understandings of privacy are complexly interwoven with factors like colonial history, culture, religion, and education. The findings challenge the universality of current privacy notions, suggesting that African perspectives offer a more diversified view that intertwines individual and communal aspects. This research underscores the need for contextually sensitive approaches to student data privacy in LA, particularly as African higher education increasingly digitises. The paper concludes with implications for developing inclusive, culturally aware privacy standards in LA, contributing to a more nuanced global understanding of privacy in the digital age.

Privacy of personal information disclosed during e-commerce transactions continues to be an important issue for internet users. Previous research indicates the existence of gender differences in privacy concerns online. However, little has been done to explore these differences in the context of various dimensions of privacy and their influence on purchasing behaviour. This study focuses on gender differences from two perspectives. First, it explores gender differences along three specific dimensions of privacy. Second, it considers the moderating role of gender in the relationships between dimensions of privacy and purchasing behaviour. Results of this study show that female and male internet users do not differ in their concern about information privacy online. However, they differ in the way privacy concerns influence their purchasing behaviour online.

Robots, particularly the ones that belong to a special type of robotic technologies designed and deployed for communicating and interacting with humans, slip into more and more domains of human life - from the research laboratories and operating rooms to our kitchens, bedrooms, and offices. They can interact with humans with facial expressions, gaze directions, and voices, mimicking the affective dynamics of human relationships. As a result, they create new opportunities, but also new challenges and risks to peoples’ privacy. The literature on privacy issues in the context of Social Companion Robots (SCRs) is poor and has a strong focus on information privacy and data protection. It has given, however, less attention to other dimensions of privacy, e.g. physical, emotional, or social privacy. This article argues for an “evolving” or “transformable” notion of privacy, as opposed to the “elusive” concept of privacy elaborated by leading privacy theorists such as Daniel J. Solove (2008) and Judith J. Thomson (1975). In other words, rather than assuming that privacy has a single core or definition (as defined, e.g., in Warren and Brandeis' 1890 paper), it maintains that it is important to conceptualize privacy as distinguishable into various aspects, including informational privacy, the privacy of thoughts and actions, and social privacy. This inductive approach makes it possible to identify new dimensions of privacy and therefore effectively respond to the rapid technological evolution in AI technologies which is constantly introducing new spheres of privacy intrusions.

Online banking allows a user to conduct financial transactions via the Internet. Online banking is also known as Internet banking or web banking. Online banking offers customers almost every service traditionally available through a local branch including deposits, transfers, and online bill payments. The goal of this research was to analyze the international tourists’ satisfaction with online banking services in the contexts of Bangladesh. The paper explores tourists’ satisfaction with efficient dimensions, responsiveness dimensions, system available dimensions, privacy dimensions, fulfillment dimensions, compensation dimensions, and contact dimensions. The data were gathered from a sample of 176 international visitors to Bangladesh by utilizing a purposive sampling method and adopting a survey method comprised of a web-based structured questionnaire. The findings of the research suggest that efficient dimensions, system availability dimensions, privacy dimensions, and fulfillment dimensions are the most essential aspects which significantly affect international tourists’ satisfaction with online banking services. The study also reports that responsiveness dimensions, compensation dimensions, and contact dimensions do not play an important role in international tourists’ satisfaction. It has implications for bank service marketers regarding the effective design of service marketing strategy for international tourists’ satisfaction in the contexts of online banking service in Bangladesh.

Digital health literacy (DHL), also known as eHealth literacy, refers to an individual's ability to locate, understand, evaluate, and apply health information from electronic sources to make informed health decisions. This skill is increasingly regarded as essential for navigating the modern healthcare landscape, promoting health equity, and improving health outcomes. The study objective was to establish an association between DHL and dermatologic outpatients' attitudes regarding ethical aspects of digital health. Additionally, we validated a questionnaire designed to assess these bioethical attitudes. This cross-sectional study was performed in two phases (April 2024-December 2024). Phase-1 consisted of validating the Bioethical Attitudes toward Digital Health questionnaire (BADH). Phase-2 evaluated the association between the eHEALS (it assesses a person's ability to use digital health resources) and BADH scores. Three convenience samples of consecutive patients were used: S-1 included 46 patients who participated in a pilot testing, S-2 included 100 patients who participated in the BADH validation and S-3 included 120 patients and was used to investigate the association between DHL and bioethical attitudes. Descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression analysis were used. The 8-item BADH was found to be feasible, valid, and reliable. The exploratory factor analysis revealed a two-factor structure, consisting of trust and privacy dimensions, which accounted for 59.8% of the total variance. This structure was subsequently validated through confirmatory factor analysis. The BADH reliability was confirmed with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.686 and ICC of 0.684 (95% CI: 0.581-0.770). A positive linear association was identified between the eHEALS and the BADH scores (β = 0.465, 95%CI: 0.218-0.450, p < 0.001). This relationship was evident with the trust dimension of the BADH (β = 0.526, 95%CI: 0.206-0.379, p < 0.001), but not with the privacy dimension. DHL is associated with individual moral positions regarding digital health, particularly those concerning trust. The BADH questionnaire has adequate psychometric properties.

Online banking allows a user to conduct financial transactions via the Internet. Online banking is also known as Internet banking or web banking. Online banking offers customers almost every service traditionally available through a local branch, including deposits, transfers, and online bill payments. The goal of this research was to analyze international tourists’ satisfaction with online banking services in the context of Ho Chi Minh City. The paper explores international tourists’ satisfaction with efficient dimensions, responsiveness dimensions, system-available dimensions, privacy dimensions, fulfillment dimensions, compensation dimensions, and contact dimensions. The data were gathered from a sample of 176 international tourists to Ho Chi Minh City by utilizing a purposive sampling method and adopting a survey method comprised of a structured questionnaire. The findings of the research suggest that efficient dimensions, system availability dimensions, privacy dimensions, and fulfillment dimensions are the most essential aspects that significantly affect international tourists’ satisfaction with online banking services. The study also reports that responsiveness dimensions, compensation dimensions, and contact dimensions do not have a statistically significant impact on international tourists’ satisfaction. It has implications for bank service marketers regarding the effective design of service marketing strategies for enhancing international tourists’ satisfaction in the context of online banking services in Ho Chi Minh City.

Many electronic businesses will attempt to distinguish themselves from their competition and gain a competitive advantage by customizing their Web sites, in order to build a strong relationship with their customers. This will require the collection and use of personal information and data concerning the customer’s online activities. Although new technologies provide an opportunity for enhanced collection, storage, use, and analysis of this data, concerns about privacy may create a barrier for many electronic businesses. For example, studies suggest that many people have yet to shop or provide personal information online due to a lack of trust. Moreover, many others tend to fabricate personal information. To this end, many electronic businesses have attempted to ease customers’ concerns about privacy by posting privacy policies or statements, or by complying with a particular seal program. Recently, the Federal Trade Commission has proposed four privacy dimensions that promote fair information practices. These dimensions include: (1) notice/awareness, (2) access/participation, (3) choice/consent, and (4) security/integrity. An electronic storefront was developed to include these privacy dimensions as part of a study to learn how privacy influences trust and, in turn, how trust influences behavioral intentions to purchase online. The empirical evidence from this study strongly suggests that electronic businesses can benefit by including these privacy dimensions in their Web sites. This chapter will focus on how these dimensions can be implemented within an electronic storefront.

Synthetic tabular data generation is a potentially valuable technology with great promise for data augmentation and privacy preservation. However, prior to adoption, an empirical assessment of generated synthetic tabular data is required across dimensions relevant to the target application to determine its efficacy. A lack of standardized and objective evaluation and benchmarking strategy for synthetic tabular data in the health domain has been found in the literature. The aim of this paper is to identify key dimensions, per dimension metrics, and methods for evaluating synthetic tabular data generated with different techniques and configurations for health domain application development and to provide a strategy to orchestrate them. Based on the literature, the resemblance, utility, and privacy dimensions have been prioritized, and a collection of metrics and methods for their evaluation are orchestrated into a complete evaluation pipeline. This way, a guided and comparative assessment of generated synthetic tabular data can be done, categorizing its quality into three categories ("Excellent," "Good," and "Poor"). Six health care-related datasets and four synthetic tabular data generation approaches have been chosen to conduct an analysis and evaluation to verify the utility of the proposed evaluation pipeline. The synthetic tabular data generated with the four selected approaches has maintained resemblance, utility, and privacy for most datasets and synthetic tabular data generation approach combination. In several datasets, some approaches have outperformed others, while in other datasets, more than one approach has yielded the same performance. The results have shown that the proposed pipeline can effectively be used to evaluate and benchmark the synthetic tabular data generated by various synthetic tabular data generation approaches. Therefore, this pipeline can support the scientific community in selecting the most suitable synthetic tabular data generation approaches for their data and application of interest.

This study aimed to identify the impact of the quality of financial and banking applications through the dimensions of (information security, trust, privacy) used on smartphones on the satisfaction of Jordanian Islamic bank customers. The researcher employed a descriptive-analytical approach in constructing the study. The study population consisted of all customers of Jordanian Islamic banks. The researcher developed a research tool (a questionnaire) to align with the study’s dimensions. A random sample of Islamic bank customers was selected, and the research tool was distributed to them electronically. The researcher was able to obtain responses from 249 participants. One of the key findings of the study was that there is a high level of usage of financial and banking applications on smartphones in Islamic banks. Among the dimensions, “privacy” ranked the highest in importance based on the participants’ responses. The results also revealed a significant impact of the quality of financial and banking applications used on smartphones, through the dimensions of (information security, trust, and privacy), at a significance level of (α ≤ 0.05) on the satisfaction of Jordanian Islamic bank customers. Among the key recommendations was the need for greater focus on quality factors related to financial and banking applications by emphasizing the dimensions of information security, trust, privacy, and data protection due to their significant role and impact on customers using these applications. Additionally, there is a potential for further research and studies on the factors affecting the quality of financial and banking applications on smartphones for electronic banking services offered to customers.

In intensive care units (ICUs), patient privacy is of particular importance due to the structure of the ward environment and the critical situation of the patients. The aim of this study was to identify the dimensions of patient privacy in ICUs.For this purpose, a descriptive-qualitative-exploratory study was performed. The data collection methods included observations and interviews, which were handwritten and analyzed using qualitative content analysis with a conventional approach. A total of 27 participants were selected based on purposeful sampling and with maximum diversity of health-care providers and recipients. The study environment was the ICUs of two selected hospitals affiliated to the medical sciences universities of Isfahan and Tehran, Iran.The data were analyzed into 4 classes and 12 subclasses. The classes included physical, informational, psychosocial, and spiritual-religious privacy.Findings of the present study identified hidden layers of patient privacy as a multidimensional concept that is influenced by various factors. In order to provide holistic care, preparing the grounds for patient privacy ‎and familiarizing the staff with its various dimensions seem necessary.

PurposeThe integration of internet of things (IoT) devices into daily life introduces challenges for the privacy of their users and those who are affected by these devices. This paper explores the factors that affect individual concerns regarding IoT use and how those factors affect the dynamics of privacy management with the presence of an IoT device.Design/methodology/approachFour focus groups of individuals and IoT experts were studied to understand the groups’ privacy concerns. The authors adopted a qualitative research method based on grounded theory to find relevant dimensions of situational privacy concerns in IoT use situations.FindingsThe results revealed that fourteen dimensions of individuals’ privacy concerns regarding the IoT are relevant and can be categorized under four key influential factors: collection, IoT device, collected data storage and use of collected data. The authors also analyzed the focus groups using genres of disclosure theory and explored how privacy concerns affect individual privacy management regulations.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper contributes to how future research can employ genres of disclosure as a theoretical framework to identify situations where privacy violations occur.Practical implicationsThis study can assist service providers and IoT manufacturers in deriving design principles and decreasing concerns by addressing the information that must be communicated to their users.Originality/valueAs opposed to the previous research, which was more inclined to dispositional privacy concerns, this study provides insights into situational privacy concerns when individuals are confronted with the IoT. This study represents the first attempt to investigate the process individuals experience in managing their privacy.

This study aimed to assess the impact of the e-service quality dimensions on customer satisfaction and loyalty in the online apparel market in India. The study examined the direct effect of e-service quality dimensions on customer satisfaction and the effect of customer satisfaction as a mediator in the relationship between the e-service quality dimensions of fulfillment, privacy, efficiency, system availability, and customer loyalty. The study used a descriptive design and collected data from 239 respondents in 2020. Data were analyzed using statistical tools such as Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and analysis of moment structures (AMOS). A confirmatory factor analysis was carried out to assess model fit, and path analysis using AMOS was used to test the direct relationships. The mediation effect of customer satisfaction between the dimensions of e-service quality with customer loyalty was tested through the PROCESS Macro package. While the e-service quality dimensions of fulfillment and privacy positively influenced customer satisfaction, efficiency and system availability did not lead to customer satisfaction. However, customer satisfaction partially mediated all four dimensions of e-service quality and customer loyalty. This study contributed to the academic literature by testing the E-SERVQUAL model in Indias online apparel shopping context. The study was relevant to online apparel retailers by identifying fulfillment and privacy as key dimensions influencing customer satisfaction amongst online apparel customers in India.