Purpose: Work contributes to capture and understanding of individual’s intentions to share data, focussing on data individuals perceive as most sensitive, healthcare data.

Design/methodology/approach: The study reviews literature related to the decision-making process with regards sharing personal data. The context is the UK NHS and measures from literature are used to analyse individual’s intention to share healthcare data. Measurement constructs include intention to disclose, perceived protection, benefits, risk, subjective norms and perception of use. Analysis draws on data from 129 survey respondents. 

Findings: Though numerous measurements are reported in literature and used in this study, two predictors dominate intention to disclose healthcare data (INTENTION): perceived information risk (PIR) and perceived societal benefit (PSB) and both are significant. PIR contributes negatively while PSB contributes positively to predict intention. For personal healthcare the privacy paradox applies as though risk may outweigh benefit people rarely opt out of data sharing

Practical implications: Individuals consciously or unconsciously consider their perception of the risk and broader benefits of data sharing. Both risk and benefit are both significant and important, perceived risk carries more weight than perceived benefits. Organisations need to develop campaigns to explain risks and benefits of personal data sharing very clearly to ensure individuals can make truly informed decisions. 

Originality/value: A scale is developed and applied to evaluate the decision to share healthcare data. The scale tests a number of measures of intention to disclose data and shows the significant predictors of likelihood are ‘perceived information risk’ and ‘perceived societal benefit’.