Abstract
In the wake of the global health crisis, mobile contact tracing applications have emerged as important tools in managing disease spread. However, their effectiveness heavily relies on mass adoption, significantly influenced by the public's information privacy concerns. To date, systematic examination of how these privacy concerns relate to the innovation adopter categories in mobile contact tracing remains sparse. Furthermore, the influence of individual techno-characteristics on these concerns is to be explored. This research seeks to fill these gaps. Drawing on the diffusion of innovation theory, we examine the impact of the key techno-characteristics—adopter category, propensity for identification misrepresentation, and exposure to media reports of privacy invasion incidents - on information privacy concerns in the diffusion of mobile contact tracing applications. We aim to investigate how these factors in culmination shape privacy concerns. Our findings offer insights to devise more effective strategies for managing privacy concerns. This research expands the current academic discourse around technology adoption and privacy and has practical implications for the design and rollout of mobile contact tracing applications.
DOI
10.32727/28.2024.4
Included in
Information Security Commons, Management Information Systems Commons, Technology and Innovation Commons
The Impact of Individual Techno-characteristics on Information Privacy Concerns in the Diffusion of Mobile Contact Tracing
In the wake of the global health crisis, mobile contact tracing applications have emerged as important tools in managing disease spread. However, their effectiveness heavily relies on mass adoption, significantly influenced by the public's information privacy concerns. To date, systematic examination of how these privacy concerns relate to the innovation adopter categories in mobile contact tracing remains sparse. Furthermore, the influence of individual techno-characteristics on these concerns is to be explored. This research seeks to fill these gaps. Drawing on the diffusion of innovation theory, we examine the impact of the key techno-characteristics—adopter category, propensity for identification misrepresentation, and exposure to media reports of privacy invasion incidents - on information privacy concerns in the diffusion of mobile contact tracing applications. We aim to investigate how these factors in culmination shape privacy concerns. Our findings offer insights to devise more effective strategies for managing privacy concerns. This research expands the current academic discourse around technology adoption and privacy and has practical implications for the design and rollout of mobile contact tracing applications.
Comments
We have formatted the manuscript according to style, removing copyright notice and including ORCiD numbers of authors.