Project summary

People increasingly live their lives online. With this comes an increased risk of cybercrime involving the use of digital identities to defraud, steal, and harass. This risk is magnified for groups within Australian society that have been made more vulnerable due to poor cyber literacy, infrastructure vulnerabilities, and lack of resources. The present proposal will address this critical issue by investigating how older Australians, who are increasingly targeted by identity-based cybercrime, can establish, maintain and prove secure digital identities. This work will develop and test a new theoretical framework for understanding the interaction between identity and IT.


Project description

While older people are increasingly targeted by identity-based cybercrime [1], [2], little is known about how they secure their digital identities (e.g., social media profiles and online accounts). In particular, it is unclear whether measures such as facial/voice recognition, tokens, passwords, and MagicLinks can be effective in this context and what effects these measures might have on their wellbeing. The aim of the present proposal is to investigate current practices and possible solutions for establishing, maintaining, and proving secure digital identities for older Australians.

To achieve these aims, we will apply and evaluate a novel social psychological theory of identity and technology, the Social Identity and Self Determination Model (SISDM). This will provide a framework for understanding how solutions to online vulnerabilities can be provided for older Australians without compromising their physical and psychological wellbeing. This will involve theorical work, applied fieldwork, and the creation of updated guidelines for organizations. In this, we will draw on the expertise of our multidisciplinary research team, which includes researchers in human-computer interaction, artificial intelligence, social psychology, organizational psychology as well as management, cyber security, and health.

The three core objectives of the project are as follows:

1)To create a comprehensive account of digital identity cyber security in the form of a scoping reviewof the existing literature relating to digital identities (e.g., [3]–[5]), cyber security behaviors in olderpeople (e.g., [6], [7]), and social psychological theorizing pertaining to these issues (e.g., [8]);

2)To quantify current attitudes, behaviors, and concerns of older Australians with regards to digitalidentities through interviews and representative surveys; and

3)To utilize insights from the scoping review along with qualitative analysis of interview data to create updated, specific guidelines for securing digital identities for organizations who work with older Australians.

We will use SISDM as a theoretical framework in all of this work. Specifically, this will guide the design and interpretation of the scoping review, the structure and analysis of the interviews, and the formulation of resulting guidelines. Through this, we will (a) provide an up-to-date understanding of digital identity cybersecurity as it pertains to older Australians, (b) develop guidelines to assist with digital identity security both online and offline, and (c) create theoretical linkages between cyber security, social psychology, and related fields such as human-computer interaction.

The proposed research is novel in that it draws on SISDM theory to understand issues around digital identities and cyber security. This will extend and enhance the UQ human-centered artificial intelligence (HCAI) multi-disciplinary research collaboration that was established at UQ in 2021 and will employ a mixed-methods approach including qualitative analysis of interviews, literature reviews, and the creation and dissemination of educational materials. The various elements are theoretically and methodologically novel and will be a platform for new insights and applications that will also form the basis for future grant applications.


Publication

View publications


Partner organization(s)

KPMG


Reference

[1] J. Watson, D. Lacey, D. Kerr, P. Salmon, and N. Goode, “Understanding the effects of compromise and misuseof personal details on older people,” Australas. J. Inf. Syst., vol. 23, Mar. 2019, doi: 10.3127/ajis.v23i0.1721.

[2] B. A. Morrison, L. Coventry, and P. Briggs, “Technological change in the retirement transition and theimplications for cybersecurity vulnerability in older adults,” Front. Psychol., vol. 11, 2020, Accessed: Mar. 22,2022. [Online]. Available: https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00623

[3] T. Papaioannou, A. Tsohou, and M. Karyda, “Forming digital identities in social networks: the role of privacyconcerns and self-esteem,” Inf. Comput. Secur., vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 240–262, Jan. 2021, doi: 10.1108/ICS-01-2020-0003.

[4] D. Arroyo, J. Diaz, and V. Gayoso, “On the difficult tradeoff between security and privacy: Challenges for themanagement of digital identities,” in International Joint Conference, Cham, 2015, pp. 455–462. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-19713-5_39.

[5] K. S. Lopez and S. P. Robbins, “Managing digital identities: A grounded theory of mental health professionals’participation in online social networking,” Fam. Soc., p. 10443894211014472, Jul. 2021, doi:10.1177/10443894211014473.

[6] B. Morrison, L. Coventry, and P. Briggs, “How do older adults feel about engaging with cyber-security?,”Hum. Behav. Emerg. Technol., vol. 3, no. 5, pp. 1033–1049, 2021, doi: 10.1002/hbe2.291.

[7] J. Nicholson, L. Coventry, and P. Briggs, “‘If it’s important it will be a headline’: Cybersecurity informationseeking in older adults,” in Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems,New York, NY, USA, May 2019, pp. 1–11. doi: 10.1145/3290605.3300579.

[8] A. Stuart et al., “Loneliness in older people and COVID-19: Applying the social identity approach to digitalintervention design,” Comput. Hum. Behav. Rep., vol. 6, p. 100179, May 2022, doi:10.1016/j.chbr.2022.100179.

Project members

Lead investigator:

Professor Janet Wiles

Professor
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Other investigator(s):

Professor Alex Haslam

UQ Laureate Fellow
School of Psychology

Professor Nicole Gillespie

KPMG Chair in Trust
School of Business

Professor Ryan Ko

Chair & Director - Cyber Security
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Dr Alina Bialkowski

Lecturer in Computer Science
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Dr Peter Worthy

Postdoctoral Research Fellow
School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences