Development and Validation of Two Domain-Specific Information Privacy Competency Models

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present and validate two domain-specific information privacy competency models (IPCMs); the first for online consumers and the second for users of mobile applications (apps), which were developed conceptually by the authors. For the validation of the proposed competency models, we conducted qualitative research, using interviews to collect feedback by a group of nine information privacy experts. The development of the domain specific IPCMs demonstrated that core privacy competencies are pervasive to the two domains that we studied, but also that there are privacy competencies that are especially required per domain of activity. Regarding the evaluation, the experts commented largely positively for the structure and content of the IPCMs, as well as for the extent to which they achieve the intended goals. They also provided several points for improvements, which resulted in enhancing the quality of both IPCMs. This is the first study to examine the privacy competencies that users of specific technological contexts should hold. The IPCMs can be used not only by educators and privacy policy makers for the design of privacy interventions, but also by e-commerce and mobile-apps providers, who could gain important insights into the way that they can be more reliable for their users. Both consumers and users of mobile-apps could benefit from IPCMs by acquiring the necessary privacy competencies through training programs for the protection of their information privacy.