HSE University

"Privacy Protection: When Does Hiding in Plain Sight Work?" 

We study a model where an individual (celebrity) aims to prevent another individual (journalist) from learning sensitive information about her. The celebrity can pre-commit to an ex-ante level of protection for sensitive information. We show that when full protection is not feasible, such selective protection is complementary to general protection for all nonsensitive information. In particular, when general protection is weak, lax selective protection is optimal. The celebrity may choose to hide sensitive information in plain sight hoping that the journalist would quickly give up the search thinking that, had there been anything sensitive to uncover, he would have found it already.