Will consumers always trade privacy for perks? Researchers say no

New research indicates that privacy might not be the quasi-legal tender that data brokers would have society believe it is. It does not bode well for public and private enthusiasm for biometrics use, at least of a transactional nature.

The results would seem to upend the so-called Privacy Paradox, which holds that even people who highly value their privacy will trade some of that intrinsic value for ephemeral perks like convenience online.

In fact, 90 percent of people participating in research published Tuesday say they are fed up with being forced into such transactions. The research was performed by teams from San Francisco State University and the University of California-Riverside, and paid for by AI security vendor Aerendir Mobile Inc.

Aerendir Founder and CEO Dr. Martin Zizi told Biometric Update in a recent interview that the idea behind the company is to allow people to use biometrics to establish trust, without forcing them to share their sensitive data.

The research group’s paper, published in the International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, indicates that the antipathy runs across all demographics. The disquiet is about more than online repercussions for giving away personal information. Disclosure and other misuses affect people’s lives in the real world, too.

“One cannot protect their offline privacy if their online privacy is not protected,” the authors write.

There is growing hostility toward surveillance capitalism that is stayed, according to one theory in the report, by feelings of helplessness or a realization that “protecting their privacy is futile.”

Article Topics

Aerendir  |  biometric data  |  biometrics  |  data collection  |  data protection  |  privacy