Factors Influencing Perceived Legitimacy of Social Scoring Systems: Subjective Privacy Harms and the Moderating Role of Transparency

Technological advancements in recent years have enabled the spread of automated decision-making (ADM) systems. Social scoring systems are a specific instance of ADM system, using behavioral scores to encourage pro-social behaviors. Building on a survey following an experimental study, we present two structural equation models to determine the impacts of different levels of transparency on the perceived legitimacy of scoring systems, as well as on people’s intention to comply with the system. The models are built on well-established theories highlighting procedural justice and outcome favorabilities as key determinating factors. Our results suggest that the determinants of perceived legitimacy are strongly shaped by the level of transparency. However, transparency elevates subjective privacy harms. Our findings add to the ongoing debate on the transparency of ADM systems, by identifying a trade-off between the elimination of outcome favorabilities in determining perceptions of legitimacy, and increased subjective privacy harms, weakening people’s intention to comply.