Year of Publication

2018

College

Martin School of Public Policy and Administration

Degree Name

Master of Public Administration

Committee Chair

Dr. Petrovsky

Executive Summary

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how people’s awareness and ways to obtain relevant materials of personal information have influenced individual’s information privacy protection activities. This study uses the data of a 2016 survey on information security published by Korea Information and Security Agency.

The dependent variables of this study are preventive measures for the security of a Personal Computer (PC) and preventive measures against personal information breach. I classify independent variables into four types. They are internet users’ perception about information privacy, such as awareness of the importance of protecting one’s personal information, and awareness of information privacy threats and their severity, channel of information collection and education, the experience of security incidents and personal information breach, and demographic factors. I use multiple regressions to estimate the effects of the independent variables.

The result of this study shows that the level of awareness of the importance of information privacy is positively correlated with information privacy protection activities. Also, it demonstrates that the more people think the information privacy threat is severe, the more they engage in information privacy protection activities. In addition, it shows that internet users who obtained relevant information from watching TV, reading the news paper, or browsing internet are more likely to have engaged in information privacy protection activities. In order to encourage people to raise their information privacy protection activities, the South Korean government should consider factors identified in this study.

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