Mansour Almansour MSc Dissertation 2014/15

Privacy and Electronic Records

Supervised by A.Sharkey

Abstract

The dissertation investigated individual understandings of privacy. It examined the respondents concerns, attitudes and opinions about what kinds of personal information need to be protected more than others, and whether they would change their opinion in emergency situations. It also examined which kind of information they are more concerned about who has access to it. Also it explored the respondent’s attitude to new technology in relation to privacy. Finally, it investigated their opinions about government classified documents leaks such as WikiLeaks.

With the continuous increase in storage of individual’s information in electronic devices, the issue of storing it in reliable way has become one of the most important issues facing all kinds of organizations. Storing this information in a reliable way means protecting it against hackers, theft and unauthorized access and modification. To solve these issues organizations can use different ways to protect this information including encryption and multi-level data access.

This dissertation project has discovered some interesting findings, such as older individuals are more interested about their privacy than younger individuals. Information related to money, communication and human diseases are the kinds of information people most want to keep private and those related to education and social life are less important. Females are more open to their information being shared than males and most participants would change their view about the importance of keeping their medical information private if they are in an emergency situation. Finally, most individuals don’t trust smartphone apps to protect their information.