The Influence of privacy control options on the evaluation and user acceptance of mobile applications for volunteers in crisis situations

ABSTRACT

Mobile technologies offer new opportunities for the creation and development of systems for crisis communication and management. Vital to the success of using smartphone-based technology for volunteers is to determine whether privacy issues affect user participation. Thus, an online experiment (N = 217) addressing volunteers or people interested in volunteering as well as people with medical qualifications was conducted to investigate the influence of privacy-related data control options on user acceptance of a smartphone-based system to facilitate volunteer engagement in crisis situations. Building on agency models and control theories in the context of information privacy, the results show that higher control options led to a more positive evaluation of the app, which was mediated by perceived privacy concerns. Among people with a high career motivation, higher control also led to a higher willingness to actively participate as volunteer in the system.

KEYWORDS:

• Information privacy
• mobile applications
• control options
• volunteering
• crisis communication

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Aike Horstmann and Marcel Finkel for their help collecting data.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung in the program “Research for Civil Safety - Protection and Rescue in Complex Operation Situations” (reference number 13N13221).