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Guide to measuring privacy concern: Review of survey and observational instruments

The ongoing debate about online privacy attests to the concerns of web users. These privacy anxieties encourage consumers to adopt data protection features, shape their valuation of existing features, and can guide their preferences among competing businesses. Nevertheless, methods to measure privacy concerns remain scattered and often improvised, leading to unreliable results.

The requirement for measuring instruments for privacy concern is twofold. Firstly, without reliable tools, it’s challenging to establish and compare attitudes and opinions about data protection. Secondly, behavioural studies, especially in technology acceptance and the behavioural economics of privacy, necessitate measures for concern as a moderating factor.

This paper is divided into two parts. The first part presents an exhaustive review of existing survey instruments used for measuring privacy concerns. The second part emphasizes revealed preferences that can be utilized opportunistically for measuring privacy concerns in practical scenarios or for scale validation. The paper concludes with recommendations for scale selection and reuse.

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