Collective exposure: peer effects in voluntary disclosure of personal data

Authors:
Rainer Böhme;Stefanie Pötzsch
Affiliations:
Department of Information Systems, University of Münster, Germany;Department of Computer Science, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany
Venue:
FC'11 Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security
Year:
2011

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Abstract

This paper reports empirical evidence for peer effects in privacy behavior using field data from online social lending. Our content analysis and regression models show that individuals copy observable behavior of others in decisions on a) how much to write about oneself, b) whether to share custom pictures, c) what personal data to disclose, and d) how identifiable to present oneself. We frame this finding in the theory of descriptive social norms and analyze moderating effects, such as similarity of context, social proximity, and mimicry of success factors. The presence of peer effects in disclosure behavior can explain the formation and change of apparent social norms and attitudes towards privacy.