Factors for Online Identity Falsification among Israeli Students in the Era of COVID-19

Maor Weinberger, Dan Bouhnik

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

This research investigates the main factors which motivate users to provide falsified details upon website registration, and identifies the types of personal details that are most prone for falsification. In addition, we predict the tendency for identity falsification by examining various factors, such as: privacy concern and socio-demographic factors. We also relate those issues to the contemporaneous COVID-19 pandemic and examine its influence on privacy concerns and the willingness to expose personal details. To this end, a user study was carried out among 245 students of the Israeli academia, via a quantitative method using online closed-ended questionnaires. We found that privacy-related factors are the most prevalent for identity falsification. In addition, the regression showed the higher the privacy concerns rates, the higher chance for identity falsification. It seems that the COVID-19 pandemic increased privacy concerns among online users, which may even increase the tendency of the examined behavior.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)860-862
Number of pages3
JournalProceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
Volume58
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
84 Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science & Technology | Oct. 29 – Nov. 3, 2021 | Salt Lake City, UT. Author(s) retain copyright, but ASIS&T receives an exclusive publication license.

Keywords

  • Identity falsification
  • online anonymity
  • privacy concern
  • self-disclosure

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