People are increasingly required to disclose personal information online for a variety of reasons (e.g. authentication, registration). Surveys have always posed a privacy challenge for respondents - although anonymity and confidentiality measures are usually assumed to mitigate most potential respondents’ privacy concerns. Paradoxically, surveys administered online have been associated with higher levels of self disclosure and reduced socially desirable responding, even though respondents are often less anonymous than when a traditional pencil and paper survey is mailed back to the researcher. However, our earlier work (e.g. Joinson, this workshop) has demonstrated that people completing online surveys are sensitive to changes in their perceived anonymity and the likely audience of their responses - suggesting that privacy plays an important role in understanding people's responses to web-based surveys.

In this presentation, the methodological details and results from a series of studies will be outlined including the development and testing of a set of privacy and self disclosure measures for use in web-based surveys, as well as a further study examining privacy concerns and data quality. Finally, the results will be discussed in terms of their implications for the design and use of web-based surveys when asking sensitive questions.