Perceived Corporate and Peer Surveillance on the Internet: Scale Development and Validation

Abstract

In today’s digital society, individuals’ online activities are often observed by others. When people feel like they are being watched online, they may adjust their behavior to protect their privacy. To measure such perceptions and understand their antecedents and consequences, the Perceived Surveillance Scale (PSS) has been proposed to capture individuals’ perceptions of being watched in digital environments. However, the PSS focuses on surveillance by corporate actors and does not address surveillance by actors such as family members or friends. This is a significant issue, as the literature on vertical and horizontal privacy indicates that distinguishing between corporate and peer actors facilitates more insightful and comprehensive analyses of individuals’ online behavior. Therefore, the present study aimed to develop a version of the PSS that captures individuals’ perceived surveillance in relation to their peers. To this end, the original PSS was adapted to measure perceived peer surveillance, and then both the original and peer PSS were tested on a sample of 1,666 Internet users from Slovenia. Five distinct measurement properties were assessed for each scale: structural validity, internal consistency, convergent and discriminant validity, measurement invariance, and construct validity (15 hypotheses per scale). The results revealed that corporate and peer PSSs measure two distinct types of perceived surveillance. Both scales exhibited excellent psychometric properties, with only minor deviations. Overall, the study provides a valid and reliable version of the PSS for peer contexts and highlights the value of distinguishing between perceived corporate and peer surveillance in digital environments.