What Makes a Technology Privacy Enhancing? Laypersons’ and Experts’ Descriptions, Uses, and Perceptions of Privacy Enhancing Technologies

Abstract

What makes a technology privacy-enhancing? In this study, we construct an explanation grounded in the technologies and practices that people report using to enhance their privacy. We conducted an online survey of privacy experts (i.e., privacy researchers and professionals who attend to privacy conferences and communication channels) and laypersons that catalogs the technologies they identify as privacy enhancing and the various privacy strategies they employ. The analysis of 123 survey responses compares not only self-reported tool use but also differences in how privacy experts and laypersons explain their privacy practices and tools use. Differences between the two samples show that privacy experts and laypersons have different styles of reasoning when considering PETs: Experts think of PETs as technologies whose primary function is enhancing privacy, whereas laypersons conceptualize privacy enhancement as a supplemental function incorporated into other technologies. The paper concludes with a discussion about potential explanations for these differences, as well as questions they raise about how technologies can best facilitate communication and collaboration while enhancing privacy.