Privacy Lies

In this paper, we study online privacy lies: lies primarily aimed at protecting privacy. Going beyond privacy lenses that focus on privacy concerns or cost/benefit analyses, we explore how contextual factors, motivations, and individuallevel characteristics affect lying behavior through a 356person survey. We find that statistical models to predict privacy lies that include attitudes about lying, use of other privacy-protective behaviors (PPBs), and perceived control over information improve on models based solely on selfexpressed privacy concerns. Based on a thematic analysis of open-ended responses, we find that the decision to tell privacy lies stems from a range of concerns, serves multiple privacy goals, and is influenced by the context of the interaction and attitudes about the morality and necessity of lying. Together, our results point to the need for conceptualizations of privacy lies—and PPBs more broadly—that account for multiple goals, perceived control over data, contextual factors, and attitudes about PPBs.