Dark Data

Throughout history, humans have taken precautionary steps in order to protect their personal privacy and, more importantly, their safety. Installing household alarm systems and locking filing cabinets are measures taken to protect one’s personal privacy. Those who are more vulnerable have an even greater reason to be concerned about their this issue. For example, when walking down a dangerous street at night, a young woman is arguably more likely to be aware of her surroundings and take measures to protect herself, than a man in the same scenario. However, the same cannot be said about personal data privacy and safety online. While data privacy should concern anyone in the online realm ¹, regardless of gender, previous research suggests that online data collection has more acute impacts on women.²

At all ages, women are considered a “highly valued demographic,” and as a result, their data is especially valuable to marketers and businesses.³ Marketers target teenage girls for their present purchasing power and to shape their future buying decisions. As women have become more aware of the extent to which companies will go to collect their personal information, it is not surprising that they are increasingly concerned about their data privacy. Studies have shown that women are twice as likely than men to express anxiety about the collection and sharing of their data online.⁴ However, despite their increased risks and concerns, women are in fact less likely to adopt privacy protection behavior than men.⁵

Furthermore, teenage girls as a demographic are presumed to be more willing to provide data about themselves as well as their friends.⁶ As these girls grow older and begin to start families,⁷ they are assumed to “control the spending habits and patterns for their households”.⁸ In fact, the popular retail store Target analyzed women’s purchasing patterns in order to create a “pregnancy prediction” score.⁹ This algorithm could identify if a woman was pregnant and could even estimate her due date, sending her coupons “timed to very specific stages of her pregnancy”. ¹⁰ From a marketing perspective, influencing the purchasing decisions of a pregnant woman is likely to result in future profits coming from an entire family. This clearly illustrates the lucrative potential of women’s personal data.

In addition to women’s data being more valuable, online services marketing specifically to females pose a significant threat to their personal privacy. Women’s health technology is a rapidly growing million-dollar market, selling “period trackers, pink fitness bands and even pelvic health gadgets” to women all over the world. ¹¹ While these products are marketed to help women, there are met with significant concerns about the privacy implications of the technology. ¹² The menstrual tracking app, Flo, was recently under scrutiny for releasing the information of millions of women’s fertility to Facebook. ¹³ This data was then used to match each Flo user to a specific Facebook profile, allowing them to understand intimate details about a woman’s fertility and market to them accordingly. ¹⁴ In addition to marketing purposes, the fertility data of women looking to get pregnant has the potential to be used against them by future employers during the hiring process.

As women have become more aware of the extent to which companies will go to collect their personal information, it is not surprising that they are increasingly concerned about their data privacy. However, despite their increased risks and concerns, women are in fact less likely to adopt privacy protection behavior than men. ¹⁵ The relationship between high levels of privacy concern and low levels of privacy protection is commonly referred to as the “privacy paradox”. However, it is evident that women and men experience and navigate the paradox differently. ¹⁶

Aspects of the digital divide attributed to gender may help explain why women are less likely to engage in privacy protection behavior, despite experiencing disproportionate risks to their personal data. While women and men in the United States have equal access to the internet, ¹⁷ a gap in user competence and technical skills still persists. ¹⁸ This gap becomes particularly important in light of the fact that a significant relationship has emerged between an individual’s technical abilities online and their privacy protection behavior. ¹⁹ In a study on gendered privacy and inequality on the internet, Yong Jin Park ²⁰ found that men demonstrated more technical skills online than women, resulting in an increased confidence regarding their ability to protect their data. In the same study, women were observed to lack self-confidence in their technical abilities. As a result, women were more likely to believe that they did not possess the capability to protect their privacy, despite their actual skill level. ²¹ This self-perceived lack of technical skills can ultimately be seen as hindering women from adopting privacy protection behaviour. ²²

The notion of “privacy calculus” can also be used to explain the gendered privacy paradox. Privacy calculus is essentially a decision making process where one assesses the costs and benefits of disclosing their personal data. ²³ Privacy calculus often includes the assessment of “privacy tradeoffs” such as “financial rewards, personalization or sensitivity of information to disclose”. ²⁴ In the example of Flo, the convenience and specificity of information provided by the app may outweigh the cost of having this information released to marketers and businesses. Thus, although women are aware of the risks to their personal privacy, they may be willing to forgoe these in risks in order to experience the benefits of the service.

Similar to privacy calculus, the concept of “privacy cynicism” was developed in an attempt to explain the reasoning behind the privacy paradox. In their article “Privacy Cynicism: A New Approach to the Privacy Paradox”, Hoffman, Lutz and Ranzini ²⁵ define privacy cynicism as “an attitude of uncertainty, powerlessness and mistrust towards the handling of personal data by online services, rendering privacy protection behavior subjectively futile.” Privacy cynicism is often derived from a combination of the digital divide and privacy calculus. As women are more likely to experience disparate impacts of the digital divide and privacy calculus, it is not surprising that they would also experience higher rates of privacy cynicism. When a woman lacks the technical skills or general knowledge about privacy protection and must also weigh the cost and benefits of releasing their personal data, they are likely to become aggravated by the situation. This aggravation can lead to their withdrawal from the platform.²⁶ Privacy cynicism is then used as a coping mechanism or even avoidance strategy, allowing “fearful, low-skilled users to take advantage of the desired online services without cognitive dissonance since privacy protection behavior can be rationalized as useless or ineffective”. ²⁷

As the privacy landscape continues to evolve, issues surrounding the collection and release of personal data will become even more pertinent. Due to the fact that women’s data is extraordinarily valuable to businesses, gender must become a central aspect in conversations surrounding data privacy and protection. While researchers have attempted to explain the privacy paradox through topics including the digital divide, privacy calculus and privacy cynicism, they have yet to propose solutions to this conflict. □

Mikaela Ergas Lenett is a MS Data Visualization student at Parsons School of Design