The Value of Personal Information: An Exploratory Study for Types of Personal Information and Its Value

As the number of online privacy incidents are increasing, lawsuits related with personal information infringements have been also growing as well. However, there are large differences between a plaintiff and a defendant to determine the amount of payment for damages from the incident. After the verdict was made, a plaintiff is not satisfied with the amount of compensation, whereas a defendant usually tries to their best to reduce the payment amount. This is because the value for personal information are hardly assessed exactly. In addition, there is no criteria for calculating the price of the information itself. Since the development of information technology enables the firms could collect and use any piece of information to identify a particular individual, the range of personal information has been also broadening. Based on these phenomenon, this study tries to grouping the types of personal information and exploring the perceived value of types of information. Therefore, this study could provide a foundation for narrowing the gap of the value of personal information between the firm and the defendant. Through AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process), this study finds out that people usually value more on biometrics information, medical records, and criminal records whereas weigh less for email address and date of birth.