Visible to the public Privacy Policy – ``I Agree''⁈ – Do Alternatives to Text-Based Policies Increase the Awareness of the Users?

TitlePrivacy Policy – ``I Agree''⁈ – Do Alternatives to Text-Based Policies Increase the Awareness of the Users?
Publication TypeConference Paper
Year of Publication2020
AuthorsFaurie, Pascal, Moldovan, Arghir-Nicolae, Tal, Irina
Conference Name2020 International Conference on Cyber Security and Protection of Digital Services (Cyber Security)
Keywordsawareness, GDPR, Human Behavior, policy, privacy, Privacy Policies, pubcrawl, Scalability, usable security
AbstractSince GDPR was introduced, there is a reinforcement of the fact that users must give their consent before their personal data can be managed by any website. However, many studies have demonstrated that users often skip these policies and click the "I agree" button to continue browsing, being unaware of what the consent they gave was about, hence defeating the purpose of GDPR. This paper investigates if different ways of presenting users the privacy policy can change this behaviour and can lead to an increased awareness of the user in relation to what the user agrees with. Three different types of policies were used in the study: a full-text policy, a so-called usable policy, and a video-based policy. Results demonstrated that the type of policy has a direct influence on the user awareness and user satisfaction. The two alternatives to the text-based policy lead to a significant increase of user awareness in relation to the content of the policy and to a significant increase in the user satisfaction in relation to the usability of the policy.
DOI10.1109/CyberSecurity49315.2020.9138857
Citation Keyfaurie_privacy_2020