Why We Disclose Personal Information Despite Cybersecurity Risks and Vulnerabilities: Obligatory Passage Point Perspective

Is it fair to say that the disclosure of personal information, in an online setting, is voluntary or due to incentivization, cognitive risk-benefit analysis, cognitive predisposition, or based on information sensitivity, whereas our personal information is being collected, knowingly and forcibly most of the time, and unknowingly and inadvertently at other times? While the collection of personal information is necessary to organizations and online users alike, in completing online transactions, the issue is the collection of additional non-pertinent information that serves only organizations' prescriptive and predictive analytics and their business interests, and not the users'. Most study on the phenomenon have centered on voluntary or willful disclosure, and on technical collections. This article examines the phenomenon based on the concept of the obligatory passage point and found that online users disclose their personal information online mostly because the information are designated as required in an online setting, contrary to conventional beliefs.