Research On User Privacy Paradox Dimension And Its Influencing Factors In The Period Of COVID-19

During the COVID-19,big data technology played a huge advantage,improving the efficiency of epidemic prevention and control while providing convenience to individuals and providing great help to epidemic prevention and control.However,frequent outbreaks of leaked user information and users’ own perceptions of information leakage have led to rising privacy concerns,resulting in a paradoxical trade-off between privacy concerns and privacy benefits,which affects users’ privacy decisions.And during the COVID-19,the privacy paradox phenomenon takes a new form as user privacy boundaries are blurred and user privacy benefits involve both public and personal benefits.Therefore,it is necessary to study the problem of user privacy paradox during the COVID-19.At present,domestic and international research on privacy paradox focuses on the concept of privacy paradox and its manifestations,and on the explanation of the causes of privacy paradox.However,privacy paradox is a multidimensional and complex concept.During the COVID-19,the concept of user privacy paradox and its constituent dimensions changed and needed to be redefined.In addition,the factors influencing privacy paradox also changed during the COVID-19,so it is necessary to explore the factors influencing user privacy paradox during the COVID-19.Based on this,this study first applied the value-focused thinking method to qualitatively investigate the privacy paradox and its influencing factors.The data were collected through laddering interviews,and the obtained interviews were coded to distinguish between means objectives and fundamental objectives,so as to obtain the constitutive dimensions of users’privacy paradox and their influencing factors under the COVID-19.Subsequently,the obtained privacy paradox constitutive dimensions and their influencing factors were developed in a scale,and the scale questions were designed from the results of the value-focused thinking,and the data were collected by questionnaires,and exploratory and validation factor analyses were conducted to finally obtain a privacy paradox scale consisting of 13 questions in 3 dimensions,and 5 privacy paradox influencing factors,which are privacy policy,privacy awareness,privacy laws and regulations,epidemic prevention and control efficiency,and selfhelp services.Finally,on the basis of privacy calculus theory,a model of privacy paradox influence factors was constructed and empirically tested based on the results of the valuefocused thinking method from the perspective of antecedent-privacy paradox-consequence.This study finds that the user privacy paradox during the COVID-19 is a trade-off between privacy risks and benefits for users,and the privacy benefits during the COVID-19 involve public benefits,so the main manifestation of the privacy paradox during the COVID19 is the contradiction and trade-off between public privacy benefits,personal privacy benefits,and privacy concerns.Public privacy benefits mainly refer to the interests to public subjects,such as maintaining social stability and social order;personal privacy benefits mainly refer to the interests to individual users,such as the convenience of providing self-service;privacy concerns refer to users’ worries about their private information.In addition,this study also found that epidemic prevention and control efficiency and self-service had positive effects on public privacy benefits and personal privacy benefits,but no significant effects on privacy concerns;privacy policies and privacy laws and regulations had negative effects on privacy concerns,while privacy awareness had positive effects on privacy concerns;public privacy benefits and personal privacy benefits had positive effects on privacy disclosures,while privacy concerns did not significantly and negatively The existence of the privacy paradox was confirmed.The reason for the lack of significant effect of epidemic prevention and control efficiency and self-service on privacy concerns may be that users did not develop stronger privacy concerns because they valued privacy benefits more and underestimated privacy risks when making privacy decisions.This study constructs the dimensions of user privacy paradox and its influencing factors during the COVID-19,and expands the concept of user privacy paradox.In addition,this paper develops the corresponding scales of privacy paradox and its influencing factors,constructs a model of privacy paradox influencing factors,and enriches the empirical study of privacy paradox.The results of this study help companies or governments understand the constitutive dimensions of privacy paradox and its influencing factors under the COVID-19,and help them identify the mechanism of each influencing factor on user privacy paradox to take effective measures to mitigate the user privacy paradox phenomenon.