IoT-I Deliverable - D2.4: Social Acceptance and Impact Evaluation

Internet of Things (IOT) services - namely sensor-based IS services facilitated by identification technologies such as barcode, radio frequency, IPv6, or global satellite communication - provide new security and privacy challenges in private and business situations of our everyday life. Accordingly, the relevance of privacy and security has been addressed in prior Information Systems research and, as a result, design methodologies, guidelines and policies have been discussed and proposed. However, there still exists no robust empirical instrument that has been developed and successfully tested for the class of IOT services and that combines critical privacy factors and IT acceptance research. Thus, privacy factors need to be identified that have an impact on the behavioural intention to use IOT services, individuals' willingness to pay for these services and their willingness to provide personal information in business situations and private situations. The contribution of this report is therefore to address this lack of knowledge in order to provide policy makers, IT developers and IS researchers with recommendations on how to design IOT services. The proposed underlying research model is based on utility maximization theory and integrates theoretical constructs from the Extended Privacy Calculus Model and the Technology Acceptance Model. This model is empirically tested with 92 IT-savvy subjects via an online survey. Results indicate that behavioural intentions to use IOT services are influenced by various contradicting success factors such as perceived privacy risks and personal interests. That is, the driver of adoption results from the trade-off between these factors. Additionally, success factors depend on the underlying usage situation be it a business situation or a private situation. It can be further stated that contextual factors such as legislation and data security as well as transparency of information use influence the adoption of IOT services. Accordingly, further research must focus on a better understanding of these success factors to increase the adoption of both useful and secure IOT services in the future.