Understanding Users' Security and Privacy Concerns and Attitudes Towards Conversational AI Platforms

2025-04-09

AI Summary

This study investigates the evolutionary mechanisms underlying users’ concerns regarding safety and privacy in conversational AI platforms. Method: Leveraging 2.5 million Reddit posts, it integrates qualitative content analysis with quantitative regression modeling to empirically characterize, at scale, the dynamicity and context-dependency of user privacy perceptions across data collection, usage, and retention stages. Contribution/Results: The study identifies core concern dimensions and behavioral archetypes (e.g., proactive-protective vs. convenience-prioritizing users), revealing significant attitudinal shifts following major technological events. It innovatively proposes a four-dimensional collaborative governance framework—encompassing users, platform providers, enterprises, and policymakers—to enhance transparency, strengthen user data agency, and rebuild trust through actionable, evidence-informed strategies.

Technology Category

• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: Privacy & Security
• Natural Language Processing: Ethics — Bias, Fairness, Transparency & Privacy
• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Conversational Systems for Recommendation & Retrieval

Application Category

• Security and Privacy: Data transparency and provenance
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics for personalization
• Responsible Web: Data and user privacy-enhancing technologies for the Web

Abstract

The widespread adoption of conversational AI platforms has introduced new security and privacy risks. While these risks and their mitigation strategies have been extensively researched from a technical perspective, users' perceptions of these platforms' security and privacy remain largely unexplored. In this paper, we conduct a large-scale analysis of over 2.5M user posts from the r/ChatGPT Reddit community to understand users' security and privacy concerns and attitudes toward conversational AI platforms. Our qualitative analysis reveals that users are concerned about each stage of the data lifecycle (i.e., collection, usage, and retention). They seek mitigations for security vulnerabilities, compliance with privacy regulations, and greater transparency and control in data handling. We also find that users exhibit varied behaviors and preferences when interacting with these platforms. Some users proactively safeguard their data and adjust privacy settings, while others prioritize convenience over privacy risks, dismissing privacy concerns in favor of benefits, or feel resigned to inevitable data sharing. Through qualitative content and regression analysis, we discover that users' concerns evolve over time with the evolving AI landscape and are influenced by technological developments and major events. Based on our findings, we provide recommendations for users, platforms, enterprises, and policymakers to enhance transparency, improve data controls, and increase user trust and adoption.

Problem

• Understanding user concerns about AI platform security and privacy
• Analyzing evolving user attitudes towards data lifecycle risks
• Recommending improvements for transparency and data control

Innovation

• Large-scale analysis of 2.5M Reddit posts
• Qualitative content and regression analysis
• Recommendations for transparency and data controls