Analysis of Privacy-Enhancing Identity Management Systems

Privacy has become a major issue for policy makers. This has been impelled by the rapid development of technologies that facilitate collection, distribution, storage, and manipulation of personal information. Business organizations are finding new ways of leveraging the value derived from consumer information. On the other hand, consumers have expressed concerns that their rights and ability to control their personal information are violated. Paradoxically, it appears that users provide personal data freely and willingly, as it has been observed on Facebook and other social networks. This study is an attempt to understand the relationship between individuals’ intentions to disclose personal information, their actual personal information disclosure behaviours, and how these can be leveraged to develop privacy-enhancing identity management systems (IDMS) that users can trust. Legal, regulatory and technological aspects of privacy and technology adoption are also discussed.