Survey: the effects of disclosing general data vs.location data on customer privacy

Modern technology and rapid progress in the development of systems and electronic devices have created a significant gap in protecting the privacy of individuals and communities. Intrusion into clients’ privacy in the past was mostly done through software errors or poor protection of the systems. However, intrusion into privacy in the last few years is mostly due to disclosure of information by customers directly or indirectly. Usually, information separately is not important, but if it can be collected together, it can produce new information that is in breach of privacy. Concerns among individuals or communities about privacy violations have encouraged us to conduct a survey to identify the individual information that generates new information causing privacy violations. This paper focuses on identifying whether the most harm is done by disclosing general information or location information. Another aspect followed by the study is to identify if there are discrepancies in the perception of individuals about their willingness to disclose the information if the data are optional.