Choose Your Words Wisely! Understanding the Strategic Communication of Differential Privacy

As a possible solution addressing the growing tension for companies on wanting to collect data and not upset their customers through adverse events simultaneously, differential privacy (DP), an approach that allows the collection of data while ensuring privacy, is gaining in popularity. As many companies increasingly engage in deploying DP, they consequently try to communicate such efforts to their consumers. However, compared to traditional measures, DP has unique characteristics which pose special challenges in its communication. Despite this, prior research did not sufficiently address the user-perspective on DP. Consequently, we adopt an elaboration likelihood lens to investigate how two prevalent descriptions of DP are perceived. By conducting a between-subjects experiment (n=264) we identify powerful mediating effects in the perception of DP, not known before. We contribute to literature by demonstrating the full-mediation of these effects, and to practice by depicting how these can be incorporated in a successful communication strategy.