Need Signal: Information Privacy Equipoise

It has become apparent that need signal, more than information privacy concern or information privacy calculus, is the primary driver for individuals’ online participation or online transactions, whether it is participating or transacting in egovernment, ecommerce, ehealthcare, emarketplace, ebanking, efinance, emarketing or elearning. In an information privacy context, a need signal is defined as “a consumer’s cognition and gesture, action, or sound that something is required, useful, or desired because it is crucial.”¹ The signal could emanate from an internal or external source or both. The essence of the need signal has been empirically evaluated and substantiated,² and the potency is even more apparent in the COVID-19 environment. COVID-19 has blurred the lines of information privacy attitudes among information privacy fundamentalists, pragmatists and the unconcerned.³ Data based on individuals’ desired state of information privacy and their online participation behaviors in 2016⁴ compared with the data collected for this study in 2020 support the argument that the disclosure of personal information or data resulting from online participation is primarily due to an individual’s need signals rather than their privacy concerns. Although concerns about information privacy are real and loss of personal data could be damaging, individuals’ requirements and their desire to transact online usually outweigh their concerns for privacy. The paradox is that people’s intent and their actual participation behaviors in an online transaction are generally in conflict.⁵

Consider why people, regardless of their desired or natural state of information privacy or privacy category (i.e., information privacy fundamentalist, information privacy pragmatist or information privacy unconcerned)⁶ or their concerns for information privacy, decide to transact online even infrequently. Why does a person’s intention to disclose their personal information online differ from what they actually do? Extraneous events such as COVID-19 have demonstrated and reinforced the criticality of the need signal construct⁷ to online participation and have sped up the frequency with which information privacy fundamentalists and pragmatists go in and out of information privacy equipoise (IPE). Information privacy equipoise is “the compromised or operative level of privacy at a given time and in a given circumstance.”⁸ The notion is that at information privacy equipoise, a person would need neither more nor less privacy.⁹ In other words, information privacy equipoise is where a person’s privacy concern is at equilibrium with the person’s natural desired state of information privacy. Information privacy equipoise can also be a point where the desired state of information privacy crosses paths with need signal to give way for an online transaction to occur (figure 1). People, regardless of their desired state of information privacy, usually and temporarily alter their desired or natural state of information privacy to transact online, disclosing their personal information consequently and willfully.

Furthermore, despite the number of factors empirically identified and examined in the literature, it has become even more evident that need signal, more than other factors, is instrumental to people’s information privacy disclosure behaviors. Some of these factors are information privacy concern,¹⁰ privacy calculus,¹¹ and information privacy risk and trust.¹²

The use of ecommerce and other Internet transactions is increasing around the world. Although the trend was occurring prior to the pandemic, the pandemic engineered its exponential growth. Ecommerce and online sales have been growing at 129 percent each year, in recent years, in Canada and the United States.¹³ Remarkably, there was a 146 percent growth in the United States as of 21 April 2020.¹⁴ Hence, it is projected that the United States¹⁵ will increase in sales by 3.5 percent from 2019 to the end of 2020 to US$709.78 billion.¹⁶ An estimated revenue in sales of €717 billion is expected in Europe in 2020¹⁷ and US$2.45 trillion in the Asia Pacific.¹⁸ Global online retail sales totaled US$2.8 trillion in 2018 and US$3.9 trillion in 2020;¹⁹ it is expected to grow to US$4.8 trillion by 2021.²⁰ It is clear that the Internet of Things (IoT) and the ubiquitousness of Internet-capable devices, such as desktops, laptops, tablets and mobile phones, and other enablers, such as portable and built-in Wi-Fi hotspots, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and virtual private networks (VPNs), have been instrumental in this increase.

The significant impact of COVID 19 on people’s lives, health, economy, finances, businesses, professions, work and habitations is a daily discussion by practitioners and researchers in the media, in homes and workplaces, and in institutions. The discussions center mostly on hospitalization and death counts, the number of cases across the world, the number and availability of tests and testing sites, and the impact on the economy. The auxiliary effects of the phenomenon on other areas of life do not get a relative level of attention, such as the impact of COVID-19 on information privacy. It is important to examine the effect of such extraneous events on information privacy and the conceptual mechanics in people’s behaviors therein.

It can be argued that individuals, regardless of their natural or desired state of information privacy, would transact and willingly disclose their personal information online if their need signal is high, by either briefly or continually going into information privacy equipoise. While information privacy pragmatists and fundamentalists briefly or intermittently go into information privacy equipoise, the unconcerned are always in information privacy equipoise. Figure 1 shows a depiction of the information privacy equipoise with the three categories of information privacy: the fundamentalist, pragmatist and unconcerned. The three classes of information privacy are properly aligned with three of the four states of privacy: solitude, reserve and intimacy.²¹ Anonymity is the fourth state, and it can be applied to any of the other three states.

• The unconcerned is always at information privacy equipoise because they have little concern for information privacy, regardless of whether they have low or high information privacy self-interest or information privacy permeability.²²
• The pragmatist will intermittently go into information privacy equipoise as needed whether they have low or high information privacy self-interest, as long as there is a low information privacy permeability.²³
• The fundamentalist usually will not transact online but will go into information privacy equipoise to transact online if there is no alternative or they have high information privacy self-interest and low information privacy permeability.²⁴

Rationale

Need signal is one of the most essential factors in individuals’ decisions and attitudes toward online transactions and disclosure of personal data, which has a significant impact on how organizations market their products and services and how governments and other organizations provide services to people. There are also other factors relating to users’ willingness or unwillingness to transact online and disclose their data beyond information privacy concerns, privacy calculus, Internet trust, Internet risk, and privacy laws and regulations.

These other factors include technology-assisted disclosures and obligatory passage point (OPP)-induced or cohesive disclosures. A technology-assisted disclosure is the collection of a user’s personal information or personal data with the aid of technology, online or over the Internet, with or without the user’s consent. In an OPP-induced or cohesive disclosure, a user is forced to provide information or personal data knowingly, which may or may not be relevant to the user’s transaction but are deemed necessary in the systems to complete the transaction. Relevant personal information is essential for completing a transaction online (e.g., a phone number or email address when obtaining goods or services online). Irrelevant personal data are required data that are not necessary for completing a transaction (e.g., asking for a client’s picture when reserving a car rental when the client has already provided a valid driver’s license and credit card).²⁵

NEED SIGNAL IS ONE OF THE MOST ESSENTIAL FACTORS IN INDIVIDUALS’ DECISIONS AND ATTITUDES TOWARD ONLINE TRANSACTIONS AND DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL DATA.

Understanding the concept of information privacy equipoise is essential because it supports business and marketing intelligence and advances ecommerce, egovernment, ehealthcare, elearning and emarketplace. The potency of such an understanding of information privacy equipoise is necessary for researchers because it triggers more academic inquiries by information privacy professionals. It also motivates practitioners to imbibe the triggers in their business or marketing strategy to ensure greater frequency of information privacy equipoise for more data collection, better predictive and prescriptive analytics, better metrics for the maximization of shareholders’ wealth, and better environmental protection.

Information Privacy Equipoise

The conception and application of information privacy equipoise is true even with other factors as well, such as with privacy trust, risk or calculus. For example, say some information privacy fundamentalists who normally do not want to transact online disclose their personal data. Whether they are driven to transact online because of their need signal; trust in the government, organization or merchant’s website; or assessment of the risk-benefit of the transaction, they must alter or compromise their desired or natural state of privacy temporarily. To complete the transaction and disclose the necessary personal information for that transaction. Therefore, the point at which their desired state is altered or compromised is the state of information privacy equipoise.

Information Privacy

Information privacy is “the right to have some control over how your personal information is collected and used.”²⁶ Although the concept and practice of general privacy, the right to be let alone,²⁷ is as old as the existence of human beings on earth, the concept and discipline of information privacy is relatively new with the advent of the digital age, and its definition has varied because of lack of a consensus. Despite their slight difference, general privacy and information privacy are used interchangeably by researchers and practitioners. Information privacy is also used interchangeably with personal data because although the term personal data is widely used in Europe, the term personal information is used commonly in North America. The International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) describes information privacy as the right to control one’s personal information collection and use.²⁸ Information privacy has also been described as “an assurance of good stewardship of the consumers’ personal information, in terms of the collection, the use, and the security of the shared information, among individuals, groups, or organizations.”²⁹ The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) describes the personal data protection right of natural persons as a fundamental right.³⁰

Need Signal

To understand the concept of need signal better in information privacy, it is imperative to look foremost at the need from a socioeconomic perspective or as a signal to satisfy an interest. The interest can simply be a need to obtain goods or services. In an attempt to satisfy self-interests, the need could be high or low, meaning the level of priority placed on that need, not necessarily the value.

The decision to transact online could also be a function of the individual’s perception of the level of information privacy permeability (i.e., whether the permeability is low or high). Information privacy permeability “is the information privacy that occurs despite the dialectic mechanism. Dialectic mechanism is a tactic through which individuals or groups achieve variable levels of information privacy.”³¹ Information privacy permeability can also be described as “the collection of additional information from customers by an online merchant during a transaction with or without the consumers’ knowledge.”³²

Imagine that Elvis wants to tell his mother about his planned summer vacation. Here, his need is to communicate his intention to his mother. He could write a letter and put it in the mail, call his mother or send her an email. The means through which Elvis would communicate with his mother may depend on:

• The strength of his need signal for the vacation
• His capacity to self-finance the trip
• His need to get his mother’s moral approval
• The urgency of the response he expects from his mother
• The availability of the means of communication
• The convenience of the communication mode to him

Elvis’s preferred mode of communication with his mother is letters, but because he has a high and urgent need to get his mother’s opinion quickly, he decides to send her an email. Likewise, when an information privacy fundamentalist is faced with an online transaction and the disclosure of personal data as the only option, they would momentarily alter their desired state of information privacy and go into information privacy equipoise to transact online when there is a high need signal and a low information privacy permeability.

Information Privacy Concern

Information privacy concern is real and pervasive, and people choose to transact online selectively and mostly when choosing between their needs or interests and their fear and anxieties.

Technological advancements have increased concerns for information privacy exponentially. With the prevalence of online purchasing of goods and services, online banking, online billings and payments, telemedicine, teleconferencing, and online socialization, individuals are forced to leave some pieces of their data in each transaction. It is truly unimaginable, at times, for one to know or envision all the sites in which one has left their information. A visit to a shop, restaurant or hotel would ignite the receipt of tailored or personalized online advertising. An online keyword or phrase search, location direction lookup, or purchase of goods or services would prompt the receipts of targeted ads online. A purchase of a house would trigger junk mail online or through the postal service and would initiate the receipt of a series of unsolicited personalized advertising via email. While some people welcome and relish personalized ads, others repudiate such unsolicited emails.

Furthermore, despite the increase in online activities and participation, individuals are still not divorced from their fear and concern for privacy, and the concern is prevalent to the general public as well as those who understand information privacy values, risk, vulnerabilities, threats, and costs to individuals and organizations. Although emergent and improved capabilities in technical solutions, training, education and awareness have helped organizations and individuals manage information security and privacy, the risk, threats and vulnerabilities have not diminished. Therefore, it is not surprising that many studies have found that consumers’ concern for privacy is instrumental to individuals’ willingness to transact online and disclose their personal information.

Information Privacy Calculus

The underpinning in the concept of information privacy calculus based on the Theory of Reasoned Action and Theory of Planned Behavior is the idea that people undertake a perceived risk-benefit evaluation in deciding whether to transact online and disclose their personal information.³³ Privacy calculus “…posits that behavioral intentions and subsequent actions are not only positively affected by expected utility, but negatively affected by the anticipated costs of a potential privacy violation.”³⁴ A user’s assessment is based on their perceived value and the risk of personal information disclosed by the organization. Although the possibility of such calculations or evaluation by some people cannot be discounted, the common thread in all people when choosing whether to transact online and disclose their personal data is the level of their need signal and their sense of whether an organization’s information privacy permeability is low or high.

INFORMATION PRIVACY CONCERN IS REAL AND PERVASIVE, AND PEOPLE CHOOSE TO TRANSACT ONLINE SELECTIVELY AND MOSTLY WHEN CHOOSING BETWEEN THEIR NEEDS OR INTERESTS AND THEIR FEAR AND ANXIETIES.

Data Collection

Survey data were collected from 201 sample subjects in 2016 and 304 sample subjects in 2020. Figure 2 shows the questionnaire used in data collection.³⁵ Response to the survey was solicited from sample subjects in social media networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn, via email, and from the Survey Monkey target audience. The respondents were provided the following definitions to ensure that they were all operating with a common understanding of the classification of the desired states of information privacy:

• Solitude—People who naturally would not want to transact or purchase things online and fear disclosing their personal information
• Reserve—People who are very cautious or selective when deciding to transact or purchase things online and fear disclosing their personal information
• Intimacy—People who are always eager to transact or purchase things online and do not worry much about disclosing their personal information
• Anonymity—People who usually conceal their identities when they transact or purchase things online and fear disclosing their personal information

In 2016, the sample of 201 subjects was 48 percent females and 52 percent males and 90 percent age 31–60. Of the 2019 respondents, 78 percent had a bachelor’s degree or higher, and 91 percent had access to the Internet, both at home and work to a large extent. In 2020, the sample of 304 subjects was 51.49 percent females and 48.51 percent males and 81.51 percent age 21–60. Of the 2020 respondents, 48.51 percent had a bachelor’s degree or higher, and 68 percent had access to the Internet, both at home and work to a large extent.

Data Analysis

Figure 3 is an analysis of the desired state of information privacy in 2016³⁶ and in this 2020 study. Based on the survey, 5 percent of the sample subjects were the unconcerned or intimacy in 2016 and 6.9 percent in 2020. There were 65.2 percent and 72.7 percent of the pragmatists or reserve in 2016 and 2020, respectively. In addition, the fundamentalists or solitude stood at 24.4 percent and 20.4 percent in 2016 and 2020, respectively. This result is consistent with the 2005 assessment of the three categories of information privacy in which 12 percent were privacy unconcerned, 63 percent were privacy pragmatists and 25 percent were privacy fundamentalists.³⁷

View Large Graphic

Because empirical evidence showed the pragmatists are always the majority,³⁸ the interquartile range (IQR) was used to assess and categorize the desired state of information privacy. IQR provides a systematic, logical and equitable way of breaking down the data, as such relevant in categorizing the desired state of information privacy. IQR is “a measure of dispersion calculated by taking the difference between the first and the third quartiles—25^th and 75^th percentile.”³⁹

Some important observations to note include the following:

• There was a decrease in the number of the unconcerned from 2016 to 2020, from 10.4 percent to 6.9 percent, indicating that there is an increase in information privacy concern.
• Although the number of the fundamentalists decreased from 24.4 percent to 20.4 percent in the same period, the number of pragmatists increased from 65.2 percent to 72.7 percent.
• Understandably, while the fundamentalists were notably more likely to conceal their identity when transacting online as shown in 2016, the data showed that the pragmatists were also very wary of their personal information in 2020.
• Surprisingly, the percent of the unconcerned who are more likely to conceal their personal data while transacting online doubled in 2020.

Conclusion

Online participation is anchored in need signals. People are willing to transact online intermittently to satisfy their needs, even when such online participation is contrary to their natural or desired state of information privacy. To transact online, fundamentalists and pragmatists would momentarily go into the state of information privacy equipoise. Events such as COVID-19 have sped up online participation despite the high level of information privacy concerns, primarily because of the limits placed on brick-and-mortar stores. The effects of such catalysts to human behaviors could be lasting and habitual to information practice and theory and other disciplines.

Endnotes

¹ Offor, P. I.; “Examining Consumers’ Selective Information Privacy Disclosure Behaviors in an Organization’s Secure E-Commerce Systems,” Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA, 2016
² Information Resources Management Association, Cloud Security: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications, IGI Global, USA, 1 April 2019
³ Offor, P. I.; “The Blurred Lines of Information Privacy Attitudes in the COVID-19 Era,” ISACA Now, 22 September 2020, https://www.isaca.org/blog
⁴ Op cit Offor, “Examining Consumers’ Selective Information Privacy Disclosure Behaviors in an Organization’s Secure E-Commerce Systems”
⁵ Bélanger, F.; R. E. Crossler; “Privacy in the Digital Age: A Review of Information Privacy Research in Information Systems,” MIS Quarterly, vol. 35, iss. 4, December 2011, p. 1017–A1036
⁶ Kumaraguru, P.; L. F. Cranor; “Privacy Indexes: A Survey of Westin’s Studies,” Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, 2005
⁷ Op cit Information Resources Management Association
⁸ Op cit Offor, “Examining Consumers’ Selective Information Privacy Disclosure Behaviors in an Organization’s Secure E-Commerce Systems”
⁹ Ibid.
¹⁰ Hong, W.; J. Thong; “Internet Privacy Concerns: An Integrated Conceptualization and Four Empirical Studies,” MIS Quarterly, vol. 37, iss. 1, 2013, p. 275–298
¹¹ Dinev, T.; P. Hart; “An Extended Privacy Calculus Model for E-Commerce Transactions,” Information Systems Research, vol. 17, iss. 1, March 2006, p. 61–80
¹² Norberg, P. A.; D. R. Horne; D. A. Horne; “The Privacy Paradox: Personal Information Disclosure Intentions Versus Behaviors,” The Journal of Consumer Affairs, vol. 41, iss. 1, 6 March 2007, p. 100–126
¹³ Columbus, L. ; “How COVID-19 Is Transforming E-Commerce,” Forbes, 28 April 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2020/04/28/how-covid-19-is-transforming-e-commerce/?sh=720aa8e3544f
¹⁴ Ibid.
¹⁵ Ibid.
¹⁶ Wertz, J.; “Three Emerging E-Commerce Growth Trends to Leverage in 2020,” Forbes, 1 August 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jiawertz/2020/08/01/3-emerging-e-commerce-growth-trends-to-leverage-in-2020/?sh=7e053776feec
¹⁷ Ecommerce News Europe, “E-Commerce in Europe,” July 2020, https://ecommercenews.eu/ecommerce-in-europe/
¹⁸ Sabanoglu, T.; “Global E-Commerce Sales Forecast 2020, by Region,” Statista, 30 November 2020, https://www.statista.com/statistics/311357/sales-of-e-commerce-worldwide-by-region/
¹⁹ Ibid.
²⁰ Mohsin, M.; “Ten Online Shopping Statistics You Need to Know in 2021,” Oberlo, 23 March 2020, https://www.oberlo.com/blog/online-shopping-statistics
²¹ Westin, A.; Privacy and Freedom, Atheneum, USA, 1970
²² Op cit Offor, “Examining Consumers’ Selective Information Privacy Disclosure Behaviors in an Organization’s Secure E-Commerce Systems”
²³ Ibid.
²⁴ Ibid.
²⁵ Op cit Information Resources Management Association
²⁶ International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP), “About the IAPP,” https://iapp.org/about/what-is-privacy/
²⁷ Warren, S. D.; L. D. Brandeis; “The Right to Privacy,” Harvard Law Review, vol. 4, iss. 5, 1890, p. 193–220
²⁸ Op cit IAPP
²⁹ Op cit Offor, “Examining Consumers’ Selective Information Privacy Disclosure Behaviors in an Organization’s Secure e-Commerce Systems”
³⁰ Publications Office of the European Union, Regulation EU 2016/679 of the European Parliament and the Council, Official Journal of the European Union, 27 April 2016, https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/3e485e15-11bd-11e6-ba9a-01aa75ed71a1/language-en
³¹ Op cit Information Resources Management
³² Op cit, Offor, “Examining Consumers’ Selective Information Privacy Disclosure Behaviors in an Organization’s Secure E-Commerce Systems”
³³ Keith, M. J.; S. C. Thompson; J. Hale; P. B. Lowry; C. Greer; “Information Disclosure on Mobile Devices: Re-Examining Privacy Calculus With Actual User Behavior,” International Journal of Human Computer Studies, vol. 71, iss. 12, December 2013, p. 1163–1173
³⁴ Ibid.
³⁵ Op cit Offor, “Examining Consumers’ Selective Information Privacy Disclosure Behaviors in an Organization’s Secure e-Commerce Systems”
³⁶ Ibid.
³⁷ Op cit Kumaraguru
³⁸ Ibid.
³⁹ Vogt, W. P.; R. B. Johnson; Dictionary of Statistics and Methodology: A Nontechnical Guide for the Social Sciences, 5^th Edition, Sage, USA, 2016, p. 208

Patrick Offor, Ph.D.

Is an associate faculty member at the City University of Seattle (Washington, USA). He is a social scientist and has published many peer-reviewed articles on information systems security and information privacy. He is also a Certified SAP Application Associate.