Adoption of Surveillance Technologies: Data Openness, Privacy, and Cultural Tightness

The diffusion and adoption of surveillance technologies have increased significantly in the past few decades. In addition to reductions in the cost of sensors, data storage, and algorithms, social norms have undoubtedly affected patterns of adoption. In addition to extending human abilities to monitor and regulate behavior, shared social norms related to privacy, security, and conformity will affect the nature and extent of adoption. In this study, archival data is used to examine the associations between data openness practices, privacy norms, and conformity bias, i.e., cultural “tightness.” Results suggested that social groups that emphasized conformity and had weaker open data policies, were most likely to adopt a variety of surveillance technologies.