The Role of Consumers’ Privacy Awareness in the Privacy Calculus for IoT Services

Abstract

This study verified how consumers determine their willingness to provide personal information for the Internet of Things (IoT) services and the role of procedural fairness of information disclosure on that behavior using the privacy calculus theory. We used survey data collected from 2,292 consumers with experience in using IoT services and performed path and parallel mediation analyses. The result indicates that procedural fairness is an important variable for explaining consumers’ decision-making about providing their personal information, despite the skepticism surrounding it within the IoT environment. Moreover, the role of trust in one’s service provider has increased in importance compared to that of privacy concerns regarding consumers’ personal information-disclosing behavior under everyday technology environments. Our findings highlight the implications that empirically verify the importance of building trust in service providers in a new technology environment such as IoT, and what role fair information statements may play in forming that trust.

Acknowledgements

This research was performed to apply the data collected from the research titled “A Study on Consumer Rights to Control Personal Data in the IoT Era (ISBN 979-11-5649-345-7)” which is conducted by the Korea Consumer Agency.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

All data generated or analyzed during this study is included in this published report titled ‘A Study on Consumer Rights to Control Personal Data in the IoT Era (ISBN 979-11-5649-345-7)’ published by Korea Consumer Agency.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jeeyeon Sah

Jeeyeon Sah is a policy research fellow at the Korea Consumer Agency. She earned her PhD in consumer science at Seoul National University. Her research is focused on consumer policy, consumer safety, and, more recently, data safety issues within new technology environments.

Sangmin Jun

Sangmin Jun is an Associate Professor in the Department of Consumer Science at Chungbuk National University in Chungju, Republic of Korea. She completed her PhD in consumer science at Seoul National University. Her current research focuses on consumer policy, consumer information, and data issues.