Willingness to Consent to Data Linkage in Austria – Results of a Pilot Study on Hypothetical Willingness for Different Domains

Abstract

In surveys, attempts are increasingly made to link survey data with register, geospatial and/or social media data on an individual level. Usually, this requires informed consent to the data linkage. Respondents must agree to the linking of their survey answers to other datasets, and researchers are obligated to inform them sufficiently. In contrast to other countries, few attempts at obtaining informed consent for record linkage are available for Austria. Therefore, this pilot study investigated hypothetical willingness to consent to data linkage in the Austrian case. Respondents were asked whether they would agree to four different data linkage requests: two addressed less-sensitive domains and two more-sensitive ones. The results reveal an average willingness of 66% to consent to linkage for the less-sensitive domains and 42% for the more-sensitive ones. Furthermore, willingness to consent depends on gender, income and trust in institutions. These dependencies result in a larger record linkage consent bias if data are linked across all domains rather than just the less-sensitive ones.