To Zoom or not: Diverging responses to privacy and security risks

Abstract

During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lock-down, digital platforms like Zoom became essential for remote work. Yet at the same time, substantial security and privacy risks made the headlines. Using the lenses of Naturalistic Decision-making and the Theory of Multilevel Information Privacy, we find diverging responses to well-documented security risks of Zoom use in educational environments. We identify-three distinct response patterns, which we name the ‘Agnostic’, the ‘Pragmatic’ and the ‘Sceptic’, and show how the interplay of the salient social identity, personal privacy norms, and the privacy calculus guides the dynamic of privacy decision-making in light of experiential feedback, and the developing public discourse about security risks. We provide empirical evidence for multilevel decision-making and highlight the contextual and social nature of privacy decision-making about platform mode of use for remote work.