Data Users versus Data Subjects: Are Consumers Willing to Pay for Property Rights to Personal Information?

Privacy advocates claim privacy violation is a social cost of the widespread trade in personal information driven by advances in information management technologies and the Internet. Data users claim that significant benefits from free information exchange are passed on to data subjects and that these benefits outweigh any potential privacy violations. A central issue in this ongoing debate is answering the question, "who owns and who controls personal information". Using the theory of property rights, we argue that personal information is a public good. We analyze responses from 459 New Zealanders to a contingent valuation survey to estimate the economic value data subject's place on a hypothetical change to data protection laws that gives data subject's an enforceable, property right in their personal information. The results are compared with other recent property rights studies to provide guidance for the use of opt-in versus opt-out legislative exclusion to protect information privacy.