The role of trust in the diffusion of privacy-invading digital technologies

This paper analyses the process of diffusion of a class of technologies that raises concerns regarding the public administration's access to sensitive data collected by it. We apply the methodology of agent-based modelling to simulate the process of diffusion of those technologies and, in extension to previous studies, consider both the rules for the diffusion of innovation and, simultaneously, those for the diffusion of political trust in a population. In this manner, we can explore the interplay between the agents' propensity towards innovation and the barriers that may derive from the lack of trust in the public administration and its management of the technology used to collect and store data belonging to citizens. The model and the study's findings are illustrated by referring to the case of smart cities, since these represent a set of technologies that are prone to misuse by the political authority. We conclude the paper by describing some scenarios that, according to the theoretical predictions of our model, should lead to the non-adoption of technology in populations that possess certain levels of trust and specific mechanics of diffusion at the time the diffusion begins.