Adverse consequences of access to individuals’ information: an analysis of perceptions and the scope of organisational influence

Abstract

Organisations are highly interested in collecting and analysing customer data to enhance their service offerings and customer interaction. However, individuals increasingly fear how such practices may negatively affect them. Although previous studies have investigated individuals’ concerns about information privacy practices, the adverse consequences people associate with external actors accessing their personal information remain unclear. To mitigate customers’ fears, organisations need to know which adverse consequences individuals are afraid of and how to address those negative perceptions. To investigate this topic, we conducted 22 focus groups with 119 participants. We developed a comprehensive conceptualisation and categorisation of individuals’ perceived adverse consequences of access to their information that includes seven types of consequences: psychological, social, career-related, physical, resource-related, prosecution-related, and freedom-related. Although individuals may limit their interactions with an organisation owing to consequences they associate with both the organisation and other actors, organisations can apply preventive and corrective mechanisms to mitigate some of these negative perceptions. However, organisations’ scope of influence is limited and some fears may be mitigated only by individuals themselves or government regulation, if at all.

Appendices

Appendix A: Focus group set-up

Focus group	Composition	Age [average]	Number of participants [female/male]	Duration in min
FG1	Pupils, 8th grade	13–14 [13.6]	6 [2/4]	40
FG2	Pupils, 10th grade	15–16 [15.5]	10 [7/3]	75
FG3	Pupils, 11th grade	17–18 [17.3]	8 [3/5]	90
FG4	Bachelor students	18–25 [20.6]	5 [2/3]	75
FG5	Bachelor and Master students	20–27 [23.0]	5 [1/4]	70
FG6	Bachelor and Master students	21–22 [21.6]	5 [5/0]	70
FG7	Bachelor students	21–23 [22.0]	5 [4/1]	60
FG8	Bachelor and Master students	22–24 [23.0]	4 [2/2]	70
FG9	Bachelor and Master students	21–25 [23.8]	5 [2/3]	100
FG10	Bachelor and Master students	21–25 [23.0]	5 [1/4]	100
FG11	Employees in a canteen	24–43 [31.0]	5 [3/2]	45
FG12	Calculation and aerospace engineers, management consultants, engineer in control and automation technology	24–58 [40.6]	5 [2/3]	90
FG13	Business engineer, insurance employee at the executive office of IT, sales representative, industrial clerk, sales representative	25–28 [26.0]	5 [2/3]	70
FG14	Head of marketing and product management, nurse, assistant office manager in a bank branch, employee in an engineering office, physiotherapist, architectural drafter	25–29 [26.5]	6 [3/3]	75
FG15	Factory mechanic, apprentice for health service clerk, educator, car body and vehicle builder, farmer	25–29 [27.0]	5 [2/3]	75
FG16	Truck driver, master craftsman in precision mechanics, industrial clerk, gardener, farmer	25–29 [27.8]	5 [3/2]	80
FG17	Journalists	28–68 [39.6]	5 [2/3]	95
FG18	Farmers, master electrician, agricultural engineer	38–51 [45.0]	4 [0/4]	40
FG19	Housewives and farmers	44–51 [47.6]	5 [5/0]	60
FG20	Tool set-up worker, employee at a publishing house, employees at a metal working company, teacher	45–62 [51.4]	5 [2/3]	65
FG21	Banker, police officer, group leader in quality assurance sector, lecturer in adult education, employee in an educational institute	50–58 [53.8]	5 [2/3]	105
FG22	Psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, psychotherapist, medical doctor	63–71 [65.2]	6 [2/4]	95

Appendix B: Interview guide for focus group conduction

• 1. Round of introductions

• 2. Activities and types of information that individuals perform/disclose online

  • (a) Which online activities do you perform (e.g. usage of social networks, search engines, e-mails, online banking, online shopping, cloud services…)?

  • (b) Which information do you share when performing these activities?

  • (c) Which activities do you NOT perform online? Why not?

• 3. Information sensitivity

  • (a) What is sensitive information? Why are these types of information sensitive?

• 4. Privacy concerns and privacy violations

  • (a) Which concerns do you have when sharing personal information online (with respect to the activities that you do and don’t perform)?

  • (b) How could this information be misused? Who would be interested in using your disclosed information?

  • (c) Which consequences could arise for you? Which losses do you associate with information disclosure?

  • (d) Have you (or any person you know) ever been subject to a privacy violation?

  • (e) Are there any activities that you perform, even though you see negative consequences that could arise? If yes, why?

  • (f) Have you ever consciously changed your behaviour due to perceived risks?

• 5. Mitigation mechanisms

  • (a) What do you do to actively manage your privacy?

  • (b) Who is responsible for managing your privacy?

  • (c) What do you expect organisations to do with respect to your privacy?

Appendix C: Excerpt coding

Appendix D: Evaluating trustworthiness (based on Lincoln and Guba (1985))

Evaluative criteria	Goal	Appraisal
Credibility	Assessment whether the results are believable	To ensure credibility, we followed the established guidelines by Fern (2001) on how to conduct focus groups. As we gathered data from 22 different focus groups, we gained a variety of insights from our 119 participants who varied in several dimensions such as age and experience as described above. Yet, in the end there was a lot of repetition of the different types of consequences being discussed in the focus groups so that we reached data saturation. Our focus group moderators were also well trained and thoughtfully guided the focus groups so that we are confident that our findings are congruent with perceived reality
Transferability	Assessment whether the results can be applied to other contexts	As the aim of our research is to provide a general categorisation of perceived adverse consequences that can arise when other parties have access to individuals’ information, our findings are generally context-independent. These general findings enable context-specific research on perceived adverse consequences and enable future researchers to elaborate on those categories that are most relevant in their specific setting
Dependability	Assessment whether the findings are consistent	In line with Parks et al (2016), we ensured dependability by using inquiry audits: besides the authors themselves who assessed the process of focus group conduction as well as data coding and analysis, three colleagues at the authors’ departments and four research assistants critically evaluated those steps, e.g. by scrutinising the interview guide and the identified concepts
Confirmability	Assessment whether the results are confirmable	All focus group transcripts were coded not only by the first author but also by an experienced research assistant to ensure that the findings accurately reflect the data. We also collected and integrated feedback from other researchers (professors and doctoral students outside our departments) that we received from various presentations and discussions

Appendix E: Empirical grounding of the study (based on Corbin and Strauss (2008))

Evaluative criteria	What to look for in this study
Criterion 1: Are concepts generated?	All presented concepts are grounded in the data. We derived them by conducting open and axial coding and constantly comparing and refining the evolving concepts. Exemplary quotes that illustrate our concepts are depicted in Tables 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and “Appendix G”
Criterion 2: Are the concepts systematically related?	Our findings show how our concepts relate to each other. For example, we show that adverse consequences of access to individuals’ information can be classified into seven categories. Moreover, we uncover further systematic relations by linking adverse consequences and the actors that may be seen as source of these consequences
Criterion 3: Are there many conceptual linkages and are the categories well developed? Do they have conceptual density?	We employed open and axial coding. Throughout these processes, concepts emerged were linked to each other and several early concepts were condensed into overarching categories. Thereby, we also ensured conceptual density of the categories by identifying and specifying the properties of all categories in detail
Criterion 4: Is much variation built into the theory?	Our study focuses on providing an extensive framework of all adverse consequences that may arise from access to individuals’ information, associates the consequences with actors, and provides a discussion of the organisational scope of influence on mitigating those negative perceptions. Thus, our results are independent of a specific setting and serve as an overarching framework that can be contextualised in future studies that investigate information access in specific situations
Criterion 5: Are the broader conditions that affect the study built into its explanation?	Although the aim of our study was to identify adverse consequences of information access independent of a specific context and to further analyse the role of actors in general, we expect that the importance of adverse consequences varies across contexts. In that sense, our framework facilitates a deeper understanding of how broader conditions impact adverse consequences
Criterion 6: Has process been taken into account?	This study identifies several mechanisms that can mitigate negative perceptions associated with access to individuals’ information. We discuss conditions under which change may occur in section “Findings”
Criterion 7: Do the theoretical findings seem significant and to what extent?	As our findings are context-independent, we think that they can serve as a fundamental starting point for future research that aims at investigating context-specific privacy phenomena, in particular individuals’ perception of situations where they fear an intrusion of privacy. We deem this as support of the significance of our findings
Criterion 8: Does the theory stand the test of time and become part of the discussions and ideas exchanged amongst relevant social and professional groups?	We are confident that our general framework of adverse consequences of access to individuals’ information can inspire future research. In particular, we suggest conducting more contextualised studies which apply our findings to better understand individuals’ privacy perceptions and behavioural reactions in specific circumstances. The identified framework of adverse consequences of access to individuals’ information is comprehensive and should be stable over time; however, it is possible that the importance of different adverse consequences may change. Our types of adverse consequences allow a deeper investigation of such potentially salient evaluations

Appendix F: Research process evaluation criteria (based on Corbin and Strauss (2008))

Evaluative criteria	What to look for in this study
Criterion 1: How was the original sample selected? On what grounds?	We conducted 22 focus groups with 119 participants. We sought across-group heterogeneity and within-group homogeneity to collect insights from many different perspectives to ensure that no interesting findings are missed, while we preserved a homogeneous environment that fostered openness to sharing experiences that are as rich and detailed as possible
Criterion 2: What major categories emerged?	Seven categories of adverse consequences emerged: physical, social, resource-related, psychological, prosecution-related, career-related, and freedom-related consequences. Moreover, we identified six actors who can be the sources of those consequences and identified several mitigation mechanisms, which we also mapped to the different actors
Criterion 3: What were some of the events, incidents or actions (indicators) that pointed to some of these categories?	In each of the focus group sessions, the moderators encouraged the participants to share as many privacy-related experiences and incidents as possible and discussed each of them in depth. Transcripts of those stories, the perceptions of situations, and discussions amongst the participants were then coded and led to the categories and linkages reported in the “Findings” section and exemplified in Tables 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and “Appendix G”
Criterion 4: On the basis of what categories did theoretical sampling proceed? That is, how did theoretical formulations guide some of the data collection? After the theoretical sampling was done, how representative did the categories prove to be?	Adverse consequences are the fundamental concept around which our study evolved. Thus, we followed an iterative process and gathered additional focus group data as long as new insights in terms of new consequences, new linkages to actors, or new mitigation mechanisms emerged. At the same time, we also ensured having a heterogeneous sample to not miss out important concepts. In the beginning, several of our concepts were very specific and fine-grained. Later, they collapsed into categories on a higher level of abstraction
Criterion 5: What were some of the hypotheses pertaining to conceptual relations (i.e. among categories), and on what grounds were they formulated and validated?	Based on our data and an interpretation of them, we came up with hypotheses early on during data analysis. Examples of those hypotheses include that not only private contacts but also professional contacts can be the source of social consequences or that individuals see organisations as responsible for reducing other actors’ access to personal information
Criterion 6: Were there instances in which hypotheses did not explain what was happening in the data? How were these discrepancies accounted for? Were hypotheses modified?	As the coding process continued, categories and linkages of those categories emerged. Several of these categories and related hypotheses held up, while others did not. For example, in the beginning, we had the impression that individuals mainly hold organisations responsible for mitigating the fears of adverse consequences. We eventually modified and refined this hypothesis as we discovered that several of the consequences are associated with other actors and cannot be controlled by organisations nor can their impact be mitigated by organisations
Criterion 7: How and why was the core category selected? Was this collection sudden or gradual, and was it difficult or easy? On what grounds were the final analytic decisions made?	Early on during the focus groups, when we investigated participants’ privacy encounters, we discovered that they talked about concrete adverse consequences that they were afraid of rather than abstract concerns. We thus selected adverse consequences as the core category of our study. While other categories also emerged early on, all other concepts are linked to adverse consequences. This decision is grounded in our analysis and was validated with our focus group transcripts

Appendix G: Exemplary quotes for actors and associated consequences

Actor	Adverse consequence of information access	Exemplary quote from focus group
Organisation	Freedom-related	“Yes, as we said before with purchasing behaviour, so it is completely influenced and they first identify what interests me and thereby they make profits because then the advertisement shows up everywhere, it depicts of what I’ve already looked at or similar things that I might like. Of course I might see something then that I like and maybe I click on it. If they create those profiles of people, they also know what that person likes and that influences the purchasing behaviour for sure” (P6, FG3)
	Psychological	Participant 10: “Yes exactly, so, here on my cell phone I have, I used to have some kind of location-tracking protocol from Google. I turned that off now. I could see when I…I went on Google and then you could check where the phone was. So you could see exactly where you were walking, how long, how fast Participant 9: “How precise was that?” Participant 10: “It was precise up to 10 meters. Precise up to 10 meters! And on the map you could really see that, I don’t know, I’m at the airport and I just passed the security check when I flew to China. And that was a little bit scary” (P9 and P10, FG2)
	Resource-related	Participant 2: “I just wanted to say, I do only use certain online shops. For example, I use Zalando, I buy stuff there, but I would not buy things at any smaller shops, sometimes you see these websites where the offer ideas for presents etc. I would never buy anything there” Moderator: “Why is that?” Participant 2: “I’m afraid that they’ll either never get my money […] Or that they clear out my account” (P2, FG15)
Private contacts	Social	“It’s the same thing in clubs. If you are responsible for young club members and there is some kind of picture, you boozing with young people, then immediately other club members or people of your village, because we live in a small village, say […] that’s not good company for my child” (P2, FG 16)
	Physical	“Once it happened that I was threatened by someone via Facebook. I was really extremely glad that I hadn’t shared any sensitive data online. I was really in panic because if my exact residence or my real name or other things like that had been available, it would be much easier to find me in a city not too big such as Munich” (P4, FG10)
	Psychological	“For me it is also that I don’t want everybody to know everything about my life at a glance. Because I think that today, if you tell somebody your name on Facebook, that person knows a lot, if you were tagged on pictures somehow and even though you didn’t disclose a lot of information, but you still see the person has these friends, went to that school or lives in that town. So I think, you can get a lot of information that way. I don’t want any additional information to be so easily accessible there” (P2, FG9)
Professional contacts	Career-related	“Regarding the whole job aspects – it’s not my experience but that of a former colleague of mine – she was sick-listed for the whole week and at the weekend she went to a party where some picture were taken, which were then published on the webpage of a local newspaper. Our apprenticeship instructor saw it and she got a warning letter” (P4, FG5)
	Social	“I ran into difficulties with someone on a professional level and then I took the time and did research on the Internet what kind of a person he is or how his business is rated and a poor light was cast upon him. And then it took me a lot of time until I said, okay, now I’ll invest a day and drive out there and meet him in person and by doing that I realised how much reality I had lost through the Internet. So when I perceive someone face-to-face and talk to that person and look them in the eyes and say, what is going on there and how the person reacts, that is a much greater range of information that I get and that is the danger I see that we rely more and more on information available on the Internet and take it for reality which actually isn’t true” (P3, FG12)
Third-party organisations	Freedom-related	“That will be taken into greater account, especially with health insurance and things like that. If you, whatever, look up an illness several times on Google or check what it might be, it’s possible that they can already retrace, something is going on with him. Then you want supplementary insurance, then they see that, the person already looked that up three times and then they already have concerns” (P3, FG18)
	Psychological	“As I said before, [I would be afraid] that someone has an extensive profile of me, with all my habits, what I buy every month and what I spend money on. I think that’s nothing but my private business. It’s not that I have anything to hide or do something criminal, it’s just that third parties should not know what I spend my money on” (P2, FG8)
	Resource-related	“I see hazardous potential here. It’ll probably be only accomplished in five to ten years, but then you’ll be under constant surveillance, like happy cows, and someone will calculate our remaining life time and then adjust insurance policies to that. And everyone who does not want to be under surveillance will automatically be placed into a worse category, will be subliminally criminalised, with the assumption that he must have a good reason for acting like this. That’s what I’m afraid of” (P3, FG12)
Criminals	Prosecution-related	“I don’t know, if one registers at a pornographic website or any other illegal website or downloads something, a video, using my account, yes and then I have the problem. Then I might be reported to the police or something like that” (P4, FG6)
	Physical	Participant 2: “On social media by criminals, just by persons that deliberately want to harm somebody possibly using cyberbullying. Or also specifically by perpetrators who want to kill or waylay someone, who want to stalk. I would say there is a considerable risk because everybody can get access to the data without having to specifically hack into something or…” Moderator: “Do you mean things like your location or your address by that?” Participant 2: “For example or everything you post there, pictures with friends and so on. Because he can find out everything about your life and then of course do something bad” (P2 and Moderator, FG5)
	Resource-related	“Maybe I might also be afraid of somebody, who has a cost profile of me, knowing, oh she booked a vacation for this and that week, she won’t be home then. Criminals might know that the place is vacant. One often doesn’t know who’s behind it. So that’s what I would be afraid of” (P2, FG8)
Intelligence services	Prosecution-related	Participant 3: Besides the fact that I’m not a criminal, I would never go to pornographic webpages, they always appear to be so unsafe.” Moderator: “What is unsafe?” Participant 3: “Pornographic webpages. All that stuff. I’m not interested in that, but I would never search for something like that, it’s so dubious” Moderator: “Well, what could they do with your data?” Participant 3: “I would be afraid that the police is immediately at my front door, just because I click on such a webpage” (P3 and Moderator, FG16)
	Physical	“If I think of drones being controlled by the Americans, they use your mobile phone, then [the misuse of your location data] may result in your death. […] Someone informs them about your name and says that you are a bastard. And then they use your mobile phone number and shoot this mobile phone” [P4, FG12)
	Psychological	Participant 2: “I personally know that I reveal personal information via Facebook and WhatsApp, but I accept the risks to stay in touch with my friends. Even if I still watch out, but I’m aware that I release data there” Participant 5: “Whereas, I assume that large organisations, actually intelligence services, pose the actual danger here because all of that data has to be analysed. So it can, I don’t see the danger that some, let’s say a hacker, some criminal can make use of it. That is only possible on a large scale” (P2 and P5, FG12)

Appendix H: Exemplary quotes for a comparison of consequences across age groups

To get an understanding of potential differences, we further analysed our data after the axial coding process.¹ As described in section “Research method”, we conducted exploratory focus groups to get an overview of all possible perceptions about adverse consequences. In line with this research goal, all discussions were very broad and open and each focus group covered the topics regarding access to individuals’ information that our participants experienced or were knowledgeable about. The discussions were based on situations and contexts that they usually engage in. Thus, counting individual occurrences does not do justice to the research method and might foster overinterpretation. Comparing occurrences numerically could even lead to wrong conclusions if certain types are excessively mentioned in one group but rarely mentioned in others groups, just because discussions in this group focused on different experiences. Yet, we were interested whether our data would give us an indication on potential differences between groups that could be further explored in future research. We therefore carefully reanalysed it to identify extreme differences between the groups. However, we did not find any noticeable differences with respect to age or background. Our analysis reveals that all categories of consequences were mentioned throughout all age groups and across backgrounds several times. The following table provides an exemplary illustration of this result by exhibiting one exemplary citation for each combination of category and age (Tables 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18).

Table 12 Prosecution-related consequences

Table 13 Social consequences

Table 14 Physical consequences

Table 15 Career-related consequences

Table 16 Freedom-related consequences

Table 17 Psychological consequences

Table 18 Resource-related consequences