The use of new technology, and particularly the Internet, increasingly requires people to disclose personal information online for various reasons (e.g. to establish their identity, for marketing purposes or for personalization). In addition to this increased need for disclosure, the nature of the Internet has also changed the possible implications of such disclosure which has raised concerns regarding privacy. Therefore, the use of many e-society services will demand that people make fine grained judgments regarding the balance between their privacy concerns and the need to disclose personal information.

In this paper we present results of a study which provides a detailed examination of the interaction between people's willingness to disclose personal information online and their privacy concerns and behaviours (and any moderating factors such as trust and perceived privacy). An online survey was administered to participants in two parts using an Internet based surveying system. Part 1 of the survey measured participants' privacy concerns and behaviors using scales previously developed by the authors, as well as other established privacy measures. Part 2 measured participants' willingness to provide personal information using behavioral and dispositional measures of self-disclosure using a behavioural self-disclosure measure. Measures of social desirability, trust and perceived privacy (anonymity and confidentiality checks) were also included.

The results of parts 1 and 2 of the survey were combined. A multiple regression analysis was carried out in order to investigate any link between privacy and self-disclosure. Both dispositional attitudes towards online privacy, and situational factors (trust and perceived privacy) predicted people's disclosure behaviour to the website. Following this, structural equation modelling identified the best fit to the data as being a model incorporating two different types of privacy processes leading to differences in individual disclosure: state processes (trust and perceived privacy) and trait processes (privacy attitudes and behaviours) which both act independently on people's self-disclosure behavior.

The results of the present study highlight the importance of recognising the role of privacy-related attitudes in understanding people's actions when online. Furthermore, it is also argued that different components of privacy - both situation-specific and dispositional aspects - need to be taken into account to fully understand the links between privacy and behavior. Finally, it is argued that the independent effects of situational and dispositional aspects of privacy on disclosure found in the present study have implications how privacy preferences are embedded in the latest generation of ubiquitous, convergent network devices. It is important to recognise that privacy is not only a preference applied across situations, but is also dynamic and based on the specific context of each request for personal information.