Paths to social licence for tracking-data analytics in university research and services

Joshua P White, Simon Dennis, Martin Tomko, Jessica Bell and Stephan Winter

PLOS ONE, 2021, vol. 16, issue 5, 1-19

Abstract: While tracking-data analytics can be a goldmine for institutions and companies, the inherent privacy concerns also form a legal, ethical and social minefield. We present a study that seeks to understand the extent and circumstances under which tracking-data analytics is undertaken with social licence—that is, with broad community acceptance beyond formal compliance with legal requirements. Taking a University campus environment as a case, we enquire about the social licence for Wi-Fi-based tracking-data analytics. Staff and student participants answered a questionnaire presenting hypothetical scenarios involving Wi-Fi tracking for university research and services. Our results present a Bayesian logistic mixed-effects regression of acceptability judgements as a function of participant ratings on 11 privacy dimensions. Results show widespread acceptance of tracking-data analytics on campus and suggest that trust, individual benefit, data sensitivity, risk of harm and institutional respect for privacy are the most predictive factors determining this acceptance judgement.

Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0251964

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0251964

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