Security and Privacy Trust in E-Government: Understanding System and Relationship Trust Antecedents

This research proposes an E-Government security trust model and develops a typology of antecedents in the context of citizen tax software use and e-filing. We propose that tax software use and electronic filing (e-filing) offer a novel and interesting research setting that is relevant to E-Government and security because of (1) the use of software to complete tax returns by a large portion of the citizenry, (2) the necessity of security for transmittal of information during e-filing, (3) the privacy of the subject matter, (4) the current promotion of e-filing by the American tax collection agency (IRS), and (5) individual taxpayer ambivalence or negative attitude toward taxes and the government in general. We suggest that when the information system serves as surrogate for a tax domain expert several antecedents to security and privacy trust are potential determinants of use.