Bad actors as agents of surveillance: older adults’ perceptions of online surveillance by scammers and criminals

This article quantitatively analyses older adults’ perception of surveillance by bad actors online in six different countries. In a context where scams and fraud attempts targeting older adults are becoming increasingly common, our study adds ‘bad actors’ as a new agent of surveillance to existing surveillance scales. The presented data indicates strong correlations of perception of surveillance by bad actors with country of residence and conspiracy mentality. Additionally, we find that digital privacy practices do not have a mitigating effect on perception of surveillance by bad actors. Surprisingly, we do not find a correlation between the perception of surveillance by bad actors and sociodemographic variables such as age, education level and self-rated health status. Finally, technostress indicators are positively correlated with perceptions of surveillance by bad actors, indicating the potential negative affective impact of perceptions of surveillance on older adults. Taken together, these findings reinforce the importance of accounting for cultural context and legal protections as predictors of perceptions of surveillance by bad actors as well as the potential affective impact of this type of perceived surveillance on older adults. We end by highlighting the need to qualitatively study surveillance by bad actors to understand in more detail the meaning and usage of the term ‘bad actors’ in different cultural contexts.