Empowering Users to Specify and Manage Their Privacy Preferences in e-Government Environments

The provision of advanced e-Government services has raised users’ concerns on personal data disclosure and privacy violation threats as more and more information is released to various governmental service providers. Towards this direction, the employment of Privacy Policies and Preferences has been proposed in an attempt to simplify the provision of electronic services while preserving users’ personal data and information privacy. This paper addresses the users’ need to create, manage and fine-tune their privacy preferences in a user friendly, yet efficient way. It presents a Graphical User Interface (GUI) that empowers them to articulate their preferences in machine readable format and resolve possible conflicts with Service Provider’s (SP) Privacy Policy, without being obliged to go through complex and nuanced XML documents or being familiar with privacy terminology. Users can now be confident that their personal data will be accessed, processed and transmitted according to their actual preferences. At the same time they will be aware of their privacy-related consequences, as a result of their selections.