Exploring Personal Data Sensitivity: Evidence From UAE

Introduction

Technology is embedded in every aspect of people’s lives which has now led to the trend of the Internet of Things where connected machines, devices and objects have become ubiquitous and are being used to gather a huge amount of data (Big data) about individuals. Sometimes data is collected with people’s acquiescence and sometimes without their knowledge. In fact, people’s concerns about their data depend not only on companies/organizations or individuals which collect the data, or the purposes of collecting the data, but also the type of data collected and what is being shared e.g. demographic, medical data, financial data, etc.(Valdez & Ziefle, 2019). This research aims to explore people's perception of data sensitivity to identify which are the data types/categories that people consider as sensitive; within the UAE context. Intensive research has investigated the privacy issue, which is related to the subject of this research (data sensitivity) but without going into the level of details (types of data) as addressed in the current paper, and within the context of this paper. Thus, this research aims to:

• 1.

  Explore which data type/ categories are considered sensitive as perceived by people within the UAE

• 2.

  Explore which data type/categories people-are willing (or not willing) to share with others (social media/ websites, commercial companies, friends)

This research paper is organized into five sections. Section two reviews the literature on data sensitivity. Section three presents the research method. Section four presents the research results, followed by section five which presents the implications and discussions of the results, and the conclusion.

Literature Review

Data refers to facts or numbers, collected to be examined and considered and used to help decision-making (Cambridge University, 2019). The spread usage of devices connected to the internet, like smart phones, and online applications, like web services and social media, enabled many sectors to collect large amount of data (big data), some of which are personal (Schomakers, Lidynia, Müllmann, & Ziefle, 2019) and rises concerns about privacy and its impacts on people’s life. Data privacy concern is linked to the collection and handling of personal data contained in such things as government records, medical records, and credit card information (Stefanick, 2011). Such information includes personal data which are related to identifying the person (Manea, 2017). Privacy is also related to the limitation of access to the self. The higher the privacy concern about data, the higher it is perceived as sensitive (Schomakers, Lidynia, Müllmann, & Ziefle, 2019). Data sensitivity deals with information which should be protected from any unauthorized access because of its sensitive nature. This includes proprietary data about businesses or personally identifiable information about people who are either customers or patients. There are several categories of sensitive information such as Personally Identifiable Information (PII), health information, IT security information, information obtained from credit cards, employee records in companies, students education records, contracts,etc.

The perception of extremely personal or sensitive information may differ among individuals and across countries (Schomakers, Lidynia, Müllmann, & Ziefle, 2019)). Sensitivity of information is linked to its level of privacy from people’s perspective. One study showed that Americans tied privacy to the traditional notion of civil liberties. They give important weight of privacy to their “rights”, in addition to their space, their stuff and their solitude. Americans considered social security number as the most sensitive piece of information. They also considered their health information and phone conversation as sensitive data. The study showed that Americans are concerned about their privacy being challenged in the era of digital communication and ‘Big Data’ (Madden, 2014).