Consumer Privacy, Ethics and Autonomy in a Digital Society

As enterprises continuously rely on data to effectively drive and power business processes in a digital economy, privacy concerns have emerged as a major source of deep concern among consumers and privacy advocates in a digital society. Several scholars have shared their opinions and perspectives in related articles on this issue since privacy is a fundamental and constitutional right in many countries that must be protected at all times. While several practitioners and industry experts have proffered various privacy-preserving measures to help empower users to make informed decisions that relate to the use of their personal information, others have proposed various privacy preserving measures and mechanisms to help protect the use of personal information in a digital society to create the necessary confidence and trust amongst members of the public. With the current advances in artificial intelligence, social media platforms, and automation, the issue has emerged as a major source of concern among policymakers, privacy advocates, and industry experts. The purpose of the e-Delphi study was to gain consensus from the opinions of industry experts on best practice measures and various effective privacy-preserving measures to help enhance users’ privacy and allay privacy concerns in a digital society. The study adopted the Restricted Access/Limited Control (RALC) theory of privacy to provide a theoretical framework for the research study. The study included three rounds of questioning using the Delphi method. The findings from the study revealed that effective privacy-preserving measures, such as Data minimization, Privacy-By-Design, Privacy Labels and icons, Data Ownership and control, Third-party App Permission, Mandatory Data/Privacy Breach Notice, Frequent Policy Updates, End-to-End Encryption, User-Friendly Privacy Control features, and Informed Consent, provided an effective way to allay the fears of consumers in a digital age.