Seeing Self in Data: The Effect of a Privacy Literacy Intervention on Facebook Users’ Behaviour

This research seeks to measure the change in user privacy concerns and behaviour toward their privacy on Facebook after exposure to a privacy literacy intervention called Data Selfie. Data Selfie allows the users to examine the types of algorithmic predictions that can be made from their own Facebook data, including predictions about personality, political orientation, and purchasing habits. 92 Facebook users from a large urban university took part in the study. The results show that using Data Selfie increased users’ privacy concern. We also found that an increase in privacy concern towards how third parties use social media data increased the likelihood that users will engage in Information Privacy-Protective Responses; however, a change in privacy concern towards other social media users did not.