Health data sharing and privacy among older people using smartwatches

Smartwatches can collect health data, location data and other sensitive information about users, and privacy concerns arise. This thesis aimed to investigate how older people (50-80 years old) in Sweden behave when it comes to privacy and health data. The data were analyzed according to the privacy paradox, which describes the discrepancy between how people behave and how they intend to behave in relation to risk and trust. The research approach was qualitative, and twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted. The interviews were coded and thematized following the chosen theory. Among the twelve participants in the study, a majority did not see, understand, or behave consciously towards the risks of sharing health data. Instead, trust was related to both the disclosure behavior and the intentional behavior among several of the participants in this study. This study indicates that for some of the participants, there are also other factors that determine their behavior, and the privacy paradox alone is not complete. Four of the findings when it comes to participants' behavior towards their health data and privacy were: trust-based decisions, lack of knowledge, low value of personal data, and value benefits more than privacy. Among several of the participants in this study, when trust towards an actor increase, the participant’s risk awareness decreases. It can be discussed whether the participants in the study value the opportunities more than the risks, and this impacts their behavior. Most of the participants think that sharing location data infringes more on their privacy than sharing health data, and self-education might be a reason the behavior and the level of privacy differ among the participants.