Name: Roshini Tuniya

Roll No.: 27
MAEMA PART 2
Topic: Awareness & Perception of people towards data privacy, are
people aware of data breach while using social networking sites?

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

1.0. Background

Social networking sites in people’s daily lives have transformed the way users communicate
and share information. The appearance of the internet has brought not only benefits but also
dangerous privacy problems. Social media plays an essential role in modern society, enabling
people to be connected to each other. This study describes perception and awareness of social
media users towards data privacy on social networking sites. Social networks have become a
part of human life. While enjoying the information sharing on social media, yet it requires a
great deal for security and privacy. Social media users are not just the source of information,
they are also the targets. They leave digital footprints during their visits to various websites
and applications, where privacy breaches and identity theft cases are increasing. Users are
vulnerable to privacy breaches.

Many people are not concerned about their privacy and lots of them feel that they have
nothing to hide. The sharing of personal details such as gender, age, location and other
personal information such as personal and family photographs can assist in creating an
identity that can be stolen and used by the attacker. Social networking sites have a variety of
applications that make them attractive to a broad audience. Facebook has made it possible for
individuals to meet online and has grown tremendously in recent years. Facebook offers an
effortless way to rapidly correspond with friends. There are problems social networking can
introduce, such as addiction, privacy and security issues. Social networking sites collect vast
amounts of information. To join a site, individuals sign up as a member; this process may
include providing personal information such as email id, age, address. A profile contains the
information that an individual chooses to share within a social networking site. Most profiles
provide users with an option of hometown, physical address and email address and phone
numbers. A person can have control over which information to disclose to others but he/she
cannot prevent others from doing anything. The privacy concerns and awareness did not stop
users from revealing a large amount of personal information. The main objective of this study
is to investigate privacy issues on social networking sites. Failing to protect private and
personal information affects everyone: friends, family, co-workers, relatives and many others.
Data breaches are getting quite common these days. The amount of social media being
uploaded into the web is growing rapidly and there is still no end to this trend. There are
various cases of data breach but the worst scenario that people face is identity theft.

Today privacy of data is one of the most serious concerns which people face and it has to be
dealt with in an effective manner. Hence, I chose this topic as privacy is the most important
need of the hour. This study focuses mainly on Facebook. My focus is on how an individual
thinks about his/her privacy about social networking sites.

1.1. Research Objectives:

In today’s world, there are millions of people who use social networking sites; many of these
users upload sensitive information. Privacy awareness is important for people to make proper
decisions about disclosure of data and control adding up personal data. Specifically, the
objective of this research is to:

 Investigate the privacy concerns of social networking site users.

 To know the perception of people regarding their online privacy.
 To spread awareness of data breach happening nowadays.

1.2. Research Problem

Protecting privacy is a paramount challenge for social networking site users. Due to advanced
technology, online privacy issues became more significant than ever before. Data privacy is a
huge public concern of the digital age because data breaches continue to expose the personal
data of users. Even a single breach can have serious impacts like a user could suffer identity
theft or blackmailing. So, it is important to know what users think about data privacy and
whether they are aware of data breaches happening.

1.3. Theoretical Framework

The communication privacy management (CPM) theory is focused on studying the behaviour
between the users of social networking sites and their friends. It provides a framework for
understanding decision making process people use to manage disclosure and privacy. It
explains how people choose to reveal or conceal their private information.
 CHAPTER 2

Review of Literature

Individuals are no longer just consumers of online information. They now play a significant
role in creating content for others to consume (Bateman, Butler, & Pike, 2010). Social
networking sites and the internet as a whole are public spaces, used to connect people. Gone
are the days of regular communications being performed via written letters in sealed
envelopes. User’s essentially trust that information posted to SNS’s will be respected as being
personal and private, only available for viewing by the intended limited audience. The issues
arrive when posts are potentially being viewed by larger than intended audiences. Intended
private information posted to SNS’s being viewed and used for other purposes although
questionable must ultimately be the responsibility of the user. The simple fact is that if a
comment or image posted may someday lead to embarrassment or public scrutiny, then it
should not be posted to this vast public space, regardless of any privacy policies that may be
in place. Total privacy on SNS’s simply is not possible (Hooper & Evans, 2010). When users
of a SNS use the site they are agreeing to the terms and conditions of that site. Therefore if a
fraudulent activity of some sort occurs it can be argued that the fault is on the user due to the
information being made public voluntarily, and the result of poor user awareness, having
potentially not read or understood the privacy statement (Hooper & Evans, 2010).

2.0. Industrialization & Need of Social Networking Sites

The massive use of social networking sites has brought users to question themselves
regarding privacy issues in relation to social media use. The revolution of technology
especially the birth of internet has carved out the ways to develop different social networking
websites. The development of social networking website is the new trend of the present
generation. All websites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter are quite popular are accessed by
millions of people all around the world. Among all the websites, Facebook has become the
most popular social networking site with approximately one billion people active on
Facebook. All social networking sites have become the most common platform for
communication with friends, family, and relatives. These platforms are basically used to
share videos, photos, and various types of information. Presently social networking sites have
become active for cybercriminals. It is quite obvious that the users of social networking sites
share various information and most of the users lose privacy when they share their personal
information with strangers. One of the most important concerns that have emerged with the
usage of social networking sites is privacy, most of the users are unaware of the fact about
various privacy risks. It is important for the users to change the default privacy setting
options in a customized way by which their personal accounts and information will be more
secured. Many users do not have proper knowledge on protecting their personal information
published on social networking sites. So the problems on privacy issues are often arising.

2.1. Privacy and Social Networks

Most people appreciate their benefits especially instant messaging and sharing. However, the
issue of privacy has raised a lot of concerns about social networking. Despite the enormous
benefits of using social media networks, its adoption has also been characterised by many
risks. Technology has influenced the society in amazing and innovative ways. Social
networking is one of the greatest influences in the 21st century. Up to 1.4 billion people are
using various social networking sites to communicate in real time, share photos and videos.
Use of social networking has grown to include all people of all ages including the very
young, the young, the mid aged and the old. Politicians around the world have also taken
advantage of the benefits of the social networks to communicate with their followers. While
the use of social networks has grown remarkably, the privacy and safety of the user’s
information concerns have also increased. Many people wonder whether there are people
who have access to the details they provide. The hacking of some of the social networking
websites has also raised a lot of privacy concerns. Social networks have availed instant
communication and sharing but there are grave concerns about privacy, which should be
addressed to allow more people to experience the advantages of the new technology. Social
network users can share different pieces of personal information with others; however, these
details may be misused by friends. Sharing personal information such as this can lead to
misuse of data, whether intentional or not. For example, some people share profile details
such as their full name, gender and phone number with their friends. If the social network
account of one of the user’s friends is hacked, the spammer or the hacker can misuse these
details to blackmail the user. Since Internet users represent a range of different cultures and
ages, privacy options should be clear, simple and easy to use. Users must have the ability to
control their privacy options at any time. These privacy options allow users to accept or reject
the dissemination of their information to others.

2.2. History of Social Networking

Unlike what most people think, the history of social networks goes back a long way. It is
believed that the beginning of social networking was by the sending of the first email in
1971. Most people appreciated this for a number of reasons. Emails were much cheaper to
send information to other people across the world and they could respond almost
immediately. The email inspired people to come up with other ways to communicate even
faster. In 1978, the Bulletin Board system was invented by Ward Christensen and Randy
Seuss to allow users to exchange data through the phone lines. Users could inform each other
about meetings, make announcements and share data from time to time. In the following
decade, a number of applications including the World Wide Web were introduced to the
world. Introduction of the World Wide Web inspired many to come up with better ways of
sharing information to not just a location but across the world. Beverly Hills Internet started
Geocities, which is arguably the very first social networking system to be introduced to the
world. Geocities allowed the users to create unique websites according to their tastes and
preferences. The greatest milestone in the social networks was in 1997 when the World Wide
Web got more than one million websites. In that year, blogging started, Six degrees was
started which allowed people to create profiles and list friends like the current social
networking websites, AOL was introduced and allowed people in different locations to chat
in real time and black board which allowed educators and learners to connect through the
internet was introduced. In 1999, a British inventor introduced friend united, a social media
platform that was to reunite students from various schools. By the year 2000, more than 70
million computers were connected to the Internet and inventors and entrepreneurs appreciated
that Internet would be the greatest thing at the beginning of the new century. In 2002,
Friendster was launched and grew to have three million users in just three months, at a time
when AOL had reached 34 million users. In the following year, LinkedIn, which was for
business professionals and Myspace for all individuals were introduced. In 2004, Facebook
was introduced and was followed by Bebo, YouTube, Twitter, Bing and Google plus at the
interval of one year. Social networks have grown to include many people across the world.

2.3. User Information and Privacy in Social Networks

There is a significant amount of private information (such as pictures and details of private
activities) registered in SNS. Privacy breaches in SNS can be grouped into three categories: i)
identity disclosure, ii) link disclosure, and iii) attribute disclosure (Wu et al., 2010). ‘Identity
disclosure’ relates to individual identity; ‘link disclosure’ relates to protected information
shared between individuals; and ‘attribute disclosure’ relates to the disclosure of protected
information – such as age, gender or income – which reveals a relationship between
individuals. SN users may participate in various protected activities, such as related views
and opinion or geo-location activities. Protected information can only be accessed by
particular clusters who have a close relationship with the owner of the information, and who
are deliberately selected by the owner. Disclosure of that particular protected information,
even to friends or family, can significantly affect the person; it needs, therefore, to be guarded
with extra care.

2.4. Influences of Social Network and Personal Information

The life of social network is on the user’s personal information. Some of the social networks
users are willing to share their personal information to public. Each Internet user connected to
social networks has a digital identity. The potential risks of the personal information on the
social networks that the users might be facing are;

Hacking/ Identity Theft

This appears to be more common nowadays. Stealing someone’s identity and creating
another account on same identity causes identity theft. Logging into someone else’s account
for intentional misuse has become quite common nowadays and so has Identity theft, where
fake accounts or accounts for impersonation are made solely for the purpose of fraud.

Paedophilia and Sexual Crimes

Teenagers, who are more active on social networks, are exposed to sexual predators.
Predators have time to make contact with their victims, most of the time under a false
identity, and locate them geographically. The risk is even greater as teenagers are less likely
than adults to be careful on these networks.

Illegal Advertisement and Spam

The online advertisement always refers to the user personal information. What they like, what
they like to visit and many others on user’s personal information.

2.5. User-related Privacy Issues

In many cases, privacy is breached by fellow users. This may be intentional (snooping,
hacking), or accidental (mismanagement of privacy settings by the user, lingering data), and
can have serious consequences. Let us take a look at different privacy threats that involve
disclosure to other users.

Stranger Views Private Information

Users can falsely assume some information to be kept private, when in reality it is not. This
can be due to design flaws on the part of the service provider (e.g. private photos, videos) or a
lack of understanding or attention of the user himself to the privacy controls. Also, it could
stem from data retention problems, where a resource may be deleted or disabled, but
references to it (thumbnails, messages on friend’s pages) remain visible to the outside world.
When a stranger views such private information, this is in conflict with the disclosure
boundary. The user has lost control over to whom his information is disclosed. Issues such as
this are related to your profile, connections to fellow users, messages, multi-media, tags or
group memberships.

Unable to Hide Information from a Specific Friend or Group

Sometimes you would like to hide some information from a specific friend or a group of
friends. Perhaps you would not like to let a friend know that you are planning a surprise party
for his birthday, or hide the pictures of your night out from your parents. In real life, we
easily manage the different social contexts that we belong to, but in social networking sites,
the lines that separate them tend to blur. Users do not have the control to act differently
towards one user or group of users, than towards others.

Other Users Posting Information About You

While you can control what information you want to post to your social networking site, you
have no control over what other users can post on the same post. Often, messages contain
information about multiple users. This problem is related to the disclosure boundary, because
information is made more public than intended. It can occur when another user posts
information about you which you do not want to be uploaded to the or when information
disclosed privately to another user is made available to a larger audience. This can even be an
intentional act.

2.6. Theoretical Framework

The Communication Privacy Management Theory

CPM theory serves as the framework for this study. CPM theory has been used to explain
communication and privacy boundaries between and among individuals (Sanderson et al.,
2015; Sanderson, 2011; Thompson, 2011; Waters & Ackerman, 2011). Petronio (1991)
developed CPM theory to provide an understanding of how individuals manage their private
information. Revealing private information strengthens relationships. However it could stress
your relationships if the person you disclose it to can’t handle the information and it can
reduce your privacy.

Five core principles:

1. People believe they own and have a right to control their private information.

2. People control their private information through the use of personal privacy rules.

3. When others are told or given access to a person’s private information, they become co-
owners of that information.

4. Co-owners of private information need to negotiate mutually agreeable privacy rules about
telling others.

5. When co-owners of private information don’t effectively negotiate and follow mutually
held privacy rules, boundary turbulence is the likely result.
People believe they own and have a right to control their private information. People control
their private information through the use of personal privacy rules.

Factors that help develop privacy rules:

Culture – differs on the value of openness and disclosure

Motivation – attraction and liking as interpersonal motives that can loosen privacy boundaries
that could not otherwise be reached.

Context – traumatic events can temporarily disrupt the influence of culture, gender, and
motivation.

Disclosure came along when doing mundane activities which require no eye contact because
it offers normalcy and control

Risk/benefit ration – we add up the benefits and subtract the costs of each opinion in order to
do what we think will do the best outcome

Benefits – relief from stress, gaining social support, drawing closer the person we tell, and the
chance to influence others.

Risks – embarrassments, rejection, diminished power, and everyone finding out.

Two types of barriers:

 Closed, thick, or stretched tight

Information is quarantined because public revelation would be highly embarrassing for those
in the inner circle.

 Open, thin, or loosely held

Information permeates them easily. As barriers to disclosure, they are a facade. To the extent
that privacy rules are supposed to check the flow of insider information.

2.7. Summary

Chapter 2 delivered a comprehensive literature review on the privacy of user’s information

on social networking sites.
 CHAPTER 3

Research Methodology

3.0. Introduction

This chapter describes the methodology used to identify the level of privacy awareness and
perception of people about information disclosure on social networking sites. The primary
objective of this research is to investigate awareness and perception of users of social
networking sites towards their privacy by examining how much information they disclose on
their social networking profile and their awareness of how these websites use their data. This
chapter will discuss the research design, need of the study, statement of the problem, purpose
of the study, research questions, objectives of the study, significance of the study, research
method, sampling method, and sample size, tools of data collection and scope of research.

3.1. Research Design

Quantitative research is a useful method to gain information and insights from internet users
about privacy awareness. User’s feedback and opinion can be utilized for intended purposes.
This could be one of the ways to understand the requirements and mainly satisfies the users in
context of privacy awareness. Keeping the issue of privacy, a survey can be conducted with
several objectives.

3.2. Need of the Study

As users have blurred the line between private and public information to be shared on social
networking sites, there is a need to know perception of users towards data privacy and
whether they are aware of data privacy settings while using social networking sites.

3.3. Statement of the Problem

With the help of the research, the researchers wished to study the perception of people
towards data privacy and are users aware of data privacy settings and data breaches on social
networking sites.
3.4. Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study is to see that how many users are aware of data privacy and their
perception towards data privacy settings, what do they think and are they concerned about
their data. And are users aware of data breaches happening nowadays.

3.5. Research Questions

For the purpose of this study, the following questionnaire was formed:

1. Name of the Respondent

2. Age

3. Gender

4. Qualification

5. Occupation

6. Do you use social networking sites?

7. Is your social networking profile private or public?

8. Which social networking site do you use?

9. How frequent are you active on social networking sites?

10. For what purpose do you use social networking sites?

11. How do you manage the privacy settings of your social networking profiles?

12. Do you know who can see your profile and the information in it?

13. Are you aware that you can change your privacy settings?

14. Have you ever used your privacy settings?

15. Are you aware that Facebook can share your information with people or organisations
outside of Facebook for marketing purpose as their privacy policy?

16. Have you read the Facebook privacy policy?

17. Are you aware of cybercrime, identity theft or blackmailing through social networking
sites?

18. How much control do you feel you have over the information you have disclosed on
social networking sites (e.g., ability to change, delete or correct)? 
19. It was easy to change the default setting of your personal profile. (Strongly agree, agree,
neutral, disagree, and strongly disagree)

20. What are the reasons for you in ignoring the privacy policy? 

21. The personal data should not be kept in a form by which the data subject can be
identified. (Strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, and strongly disagree)

22. Reading and understanding the privacy policy of a website helps me in protection of my
privacy. (True, False)

3.6. Objective of the Study

To learn more about social networking site users: A survey can help us to know user’s online
practices, activities and knowledge and perception about privacy.

To understand issues and challenges: To get better insights of privacy issues that users are
facing. This survey will be useful and will give chance to identity the possible threats to users
privacy.

To receive suggestions regarding privacy awareness: This survey will indirectly give a
suggestion or a opinion by the user on privacy awareness to help to frame the requirement to
form a system for privacy awareness.

It is important to understand what is missing in present privacy settings while using social
networking sites.

3.7. Significance of the Study

A user’s data is valuable so it is important to make users aware of data privacy while using
social networking sites. People take this thing lightly, they think default privacy settings
make their data safe or controlled but there is nothing as such. It is important to ensure that
their data is under the control of the individuals.

3.8. Research Method

The study makes use of quantitative research method. Online survey will be organised which
will include open ended and close ended questions. The survey will be developed using
Google Docs.

3.9. Sampling Method

A Non Probability sampling method will be used for this research as the research method is
Quantitative.

3.10. Sample Size

A target of 250 sample size is set. The population under consideration for the purpose of the
study will be most of the internet users. People who use social networking sites will be
targeted mainly.

3.11. Tools of Data Collection

I choose both tools, i.e. primary and secondary data collection.

Primary Source: Survey

Secondary Source: Journals, Articles, Published Literature, Books, Thesis

3.12. Scope of Research

To address privacy concerns over social networking sites. The aim is to investigate the
disclosure of information by the users of social networking sites. The users must protect there
social networking profiles so that their personal data or information should not be misused,
no one should have access to someone’s personal data. Privacy awareness is important for
each individual.