User Online Privacy and Identity Management Behaviors: A Comparative Study

The digital era has introduced information technology to the man on the street. This has led to the growing use of mobile devices and smartphones with internet connectivity capabilities. With more people owning internet connected smartphones, the number of online users has increased too. Some of these online users are self-taught and have not been trained in online etiquette or secure usage of the technology. It is this type of online user who is vulnerable to online information security violation. This paper investigates user security awareness practices in protecting personal information online. The study used a survey questionnaire to collect the data, which was then analysed for the frequency of three main variables: user policy understanding, whether the users read the policies, and the reasons for accepting policy terms without reading them.