# Privacy attitudes and concerns in the digital lives of older adults: Westin's privacy attitude typology revisited

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.05047 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.05047/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 15 Jan 2018.

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Benchmarking LLM Privacy Recognition for Social Robot Decision Making](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.16124/) (2025)
- [Energy cost and machine learning accuracy impact of k-anonymisation and synthetic data techniques](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.07116/) (2023)
- [Identifying Privacy Personas](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.14023/) (2024)
- [Mobile GUI Agent Privacy Personalization with Trajectory Induced Preference Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.11259/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

There is a growing literature on teenage and young adult users' attitudes toward and concerns about online privacy, yet little is known about older adults and their unique experiences. As older adults join the digital world in growing numbers, we need to gain a better understanding of how they experience and navigate online privacy. This paper fills this research gap by examining 40 in-depth interviews with older adults (65 and older) living in East York, Toronto. We found Westin's typology to be a useful starting point for understanding privacy attitudes and concerns in this demographic. We expand Westin's typology and distinguish five categories: fundamentalist, intense pragmatist, relaxed pragmatist, marginally concerned, and cynical expert. We find that older adults are not a homogenous group composed of privacy fundamentalists; rather, there is considerable variability in terms of their privacy attitudes, with only 13 per cent being fundamentalists. We also identify a group of cynical experts who believe that online privacy breaches are inevitable. A large majority of older adults are marginally concerned, as they see their online participation as limited and harmless. Older adults were also grouped as either intense or relaxed pragmatists. We find that some privacy concerns are shared by older adults across several categories, the most common being spam, unauthorized access to personal information, and information misuse. We discuss theoretical implications based on the findings for our understanding of privacy in the context of older adults' digital lives and discuss implications for offering training appropriate for enhancing privacy literacy in this age group.