Gender-Based Heterogeneity in Youth Privacy-Protective Behavior for Smart Voice Assistants: Evidence from Multigroup PLS-SEM

Computer Science > Cryptography and Security [Submitted on 28 Mar 2026] Gender-Based Heterogeneity in Youth Privacy-Protective Behavior for Smart Voice Assistants: Evidence from Multigroup PLS-SEM Molly Campbell, Yulia Bobkova, Ajay Kumar Shrestha This paper investigates how gender shapes privacy decision-making in youth smart voice assistant (SVA) ecosystems. Using survey data from 469 Canadian youths aged 16-24, we apply multigroup Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling to compare males (N=241) and females (N=174) (total N = 415) across five privacy constructs: Perceived Privacy Risks (PPR), Perceived Privacy Benefits (PPBf), Algorithmic Transparency and Trust (ATT), Privacy Self-Efficacy (PSE), and Privacy Protective Behavior (PPB). Results provide exploratory evidence of gender heterogeneity in selected pathways. The direct effect of PPR on PPB is stronger for males (Male: \b{eta} = 0.424; Female: \b{eta} = 0.233; p < 0.1), while the indirect effect of ATT on PPB via PSE is stronger for females (Female: \b{eta} = 0.229; Male: \b{eta} = 0.132; p < 0.1). Descriptive analysis of non-binary (N=15) and prefer-not-to-say participants (N=39) shows lower trust and higher perceived risk than the binary groups, motivating future work with adequately powered gender-diverse samples. Overall, the findings provide exploratory evidence that gender may moderate key privacy pathways, supporting more responsive transparency and control interventions for youth SVA use. Comments: To appear in IEEE CCECE 2026 proceedings Subjects: Cryptography and Security (cs.CR); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI); Computers and Society (cs.CY) Cite as: arXiv:2603.27117 [cs.CR]   (or arXiv:2603.27117v1 [cs.CR] for this version)   https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.27117 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Ajay Shrestha [view email] [v1] Sat, 28 Mar 2026 04:11:05 UTC (481 KB) Access Paper: view license Current browse context: cs.CR < prev   |   next > new | recent | 2026-03 Change to browse by: cs cs.AI cs.CY References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Export BibTeX Citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Demos Related Papers About arXivLabs Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)