Project

Survey Research into the Privacy and Security Experiences of Low-SES Populations

Team Members

About this Project

D&S researcher Mary Madden helmed a robust, nationally representative survey of American adults that included an oversample of low-SES respondents in order to understand the everyday privacy and security-related technological behaviors of low-SES adults. The survey resulted in a report called Privacy, Security, and Digital Inequality: How Technology Experiences and Resources Vary by Socioeconomic Status, Race, and Ethnicity.

Questions from Madden’s research included:

  • Where do privacy and information security-related practices “fit in” to the everyday lives of low-SES adults? What are the other priorities and concerns that they are trying to balance when making technology-related decisions in a typical day?
  • Where do low-SES adults seek privacy and security-related advice and guidance? How confident do they feel and what kinds of privacy and security practices would they like to learn more about?
  • Among parents, how do they rate the resources their children have access to at their schools and local libraries? What privacy and security-related skills do they think are important for their children to have?
  • To what extent do low-SES adults rely on shared computing environments and mobile devices for internet access? How does this vary by other demographic factors such as age, gender and occupation?
  • What non-technical steps do low-SES adults take to create some level of privacy and trust in spaces where and when they want it? To what extent do they value more public engagement in certain environments?
  • What are the attitudes and experiences of low-SES adults regarding information collection by employers—whether through workplace monitoring or as part of the job application process?
  • How—if at all—have negative experiences with identity theft or reputational harms affected this group differently than adults in higher-SES groups?

This project was supported by a grant from the Digital Trust Foundation, and benefitted from the input and generous participation of a distinguished Research Advisory Board.


Research Advisory Board Members

Mary Culnan
Professor Emeritus, Bentley University
Senior Fellow & President, Board of Directors, Future of Privacy Forum

Urs Gasser
Executive Director, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University
Professor of Practice, Harvard Law School

Michele E. Gilman
Venable Professor of Law, University of Baltimore
Director, Saul Ewing Civil Advocacy Clinic

Seeta Peña Gangadharan
Assistant Professor, Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science
Program Fellow, New America’s Open Technology Institute
Affiliate, Data & Society Research Institute

Gretchen Livingston
Senior Researcher, Pew Research Center

Alondra Nelson
Dean of Social Science, Columbia University
Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies, Columbia University

Joe Turow
Associate Dean of Graduate Studies, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania
Robert Lewis Shayon Professor of Communication, University of Pennsylvania

Harlan Yu
Principal at Upturn
Non-Residential Fellow, Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School

All Work