Abstract

Privacy is one of the most fundamental rights that must be preserved for individuals because it is integral to their integrity, self-respect, and safety. However, it is also a vague concept with a number of controversial issues that need to be addressed from ethical, jurisdictional, and sociological perspectives. The perceptions of both organizations and individuals have undergone noticeable changes since the introduction of communication and processing technologies. Furthermore, with the dominance of the Internet and social networks in business and personal lives, information privacy appears to be a myth as massive volumes of personal information and data are stored in the Cloud and back end systems of organizations. Such systems have created serious legal, ethical, and technological challenges related to information collection, processing, and dissemination. This paper presents the findings of the first phase of a countrywide research project that aims to provide a comprehensive assessment of information privacy practices in the public, health, banking, and private sectors. The results presented in this paper are based on a survey and structured interviews with key stakeholders in multiple organizations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to measure organizational compliance and personal perceptions of information privacy.

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