Awareness and readability of privacy policy documents in mobile loan applications among undergraduate students in Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated the awareness and readability of privacy policy documents on mobile loan applications among undergraduate students at Kogi State University, Anyigba, Kogi State, Nigeria. Two research objectives specifically guided the conduct of the study. The study adopted a descriptive design approach (survey) and the questionnaire as its primary instrument for data collection. The population comprised 33,700 students of Kogi State University. Given the large population, Krejcie and Morgan were used to purposively select 379 undergraduate students who have smartphones across eight faculties. The study’s findings demonstrate adequate knowledge and sensitization on the part of undergraduates to privacy policy documents on mobile loan applications. It was discovered that students of tertiary institutions were aware of the availability of privacy policy documents on mobile loan applications because of their level of social and technological intelligence. Despite students’ level of awareness of privacy policy documents on mobile loan applications, there is, however, a poor level of readability of privacy policy documents. The study concludes that following the known and unknown consequences, students have failed to carefully read the entire privacy policy documents in a mobile loan application. The study, among others, recommends that commercial banks and other financial institutions should educate the students more adequately on the eventual risks and consequences of not reading privacy policy documents on mobile loan applications, and mobile loan application developers should concisely mention the privacy policies and put security measures in place to protect user’s data.