By Nico Ebert (ZHAW)

cross-posted from WINsights blog

Each of us is confronted with countless privacy notices every day and agrees to the practices described. Most likely we do not even notice this because the privacy information is hidden in long and cumbersome privacy policies. In order to inform users more specifically with more relevant information about privacy, it is first necessary to understand which information is relevant to users at all. Marketing traditionally asks users about their needs, so why not ask users about their needs for privacy information?

Researchers have recently suggested that a specific usage context should be considered to make privacy notices more relevant to users. Therefore, we asked users regarding their needs in very specific contexts. We conducted an explorative online survey of privacy concerns and privacy information preferences with 642 participants in Switzerland for two different contexts. The contexts are loyalty cards (e.g. Cumulus, Supercard or Ikea) and fitness tracking (e.g. Fitbit, Garmin, Apple Health).