University of Washington scientists say they’ve determined that gender affects a person’s perspective about maintaining privacy in a public setting.
The study assessed such perspectives — particularly when surveillance was not related to security — and found women are more concerned than men, both as watcher and the watched.
The research findings also cast doubt on the notion held by some that people no longer have any expectation of privacy once they leave their homes. Nearly a quarter of the men and women considered even minimal video capture to be a privacy violation.
Although the majority of both genders had no privacy problem with on-campus video capture, significantly more women than man were uncomfortable with it. And a majority of the women were uneasy about having their images viewed at off-campus locations.

The study’s results will appear in next month’s issue of the Journal of Human Computer Interaction.