Thinking together, more than thinking twice, makes better data privacy judgements

Many individuals accept data-sharing practices by companies without much concern. Although data sharing is not inherently beneficial or harmful, its acceptability should depend on the context, including the type of data, the recipient, and the intended use. This paper examines the phenomenon of privacy indifference, where people respond to data sharing without regard for these contextual factors. We first measure the extent of this indifference and then evaluate two behavioral interventions designed to reduce it. One approach treats indifference emerging due to inattention, encouraging individuals to reconsider their initial choices. The other emphasizes the social nature of privacy norms and utilizes group deliberation to facilitate social comparison and norm calibration. Across two preregistered in-person experiments (N = 60, N = 58), we presented participants with varied data sharing scenarios and analyzed their privacy preferences. Group deliberation significantly increased contextual awareness compared to individual reflection. Importantly, it did so without leading to conformity, preserving heterogeneity in individual judgments. These results suggest that reducing privacy indifference may depend less on improving individual reasoning and more on building environments that support shared understanding and normative development around data use and consent.