The influential factors for the variation of data sensitivity in ubiquitous social networking

Ubiquitous social networking services offer new opportunities for developing advantageous relationships by uncovering hidden connections that people share with others nearby. As sharing of personal information is an intrinsic part of ubiquitous social networking, these services are subject to crucial privacy threats. In order to contribute to the design of privacy management systems, we present results of a mixed methods study that investigated the influential factors for the variation of human data sensitivity upon different circumstances. The results indicate that the users’ information sensitivity is decreasing inversely proportionally to the relevance of data disclosure for initiation of relationships with others. We suggest privacy designers to take into account the purpose of disclosure and environment as primary indexes for data disclosure. Other influential factors, i.e. activity, mood, location familiarity, number of previous encounters and mutual friends, were as well discovered to influence participants’ data disclosure, but as factors of secondary importance.