An Individual's Views of the Right to Privacy of Other Individuals, Companies, and Governments: A Theoretical Perspective

This paper develops a theoretical model to help answer the following question— what influences an individual’s opinions regarding the right to privacy of others (individuals, organizations, and governments)? This question is particularly relevant for organizations and governments, for whom insider threats to corporate or government privacy present a dangerous risk. We draw from three bases of literature (human rights, privacy, and transparency) to theorize several constructs that should account for individual attributions of another’s right to privacy. In addition, we differentiate between individual, company, and government right to privacy, justify different origins of these entity types’ right to privacy, and propose different effects on these entity types from predictors in our model. The model presented here is the first of its kind in the IS literature, and lays the groundwork for future contributions in academic research and greater understanding relevant to practitioners.