Personal data security in online tax filing systems in Bangladesh: Trust, concerns, and adoption barriers

This research explores the factors influencing the adoption of online tax filing systems in Bangladesh, focusing on the perceived security and privacy concerns, user experience, and trust as key determinants. This paper analyses how these factors and the barriers and support they create are leading to trust and use of online tax filing system. Data used to analyze security and privacy factors (encryption, two-factor authentication), trust and adoption based on system usability model were through questionnaire survey from 346 users. Using structural equation modeling (SEM), the study examines the hypothesized relationships and the identification of significant predictors. As evidenced in the results, perceived security (β = 0.338, p = 0.000) has a significant positive effect on trust, while privacy concerns (β = –0.082, p = 0.066) have a marginally significant negative effect. User experience (β = 0.272, p = 0.000) is another single significant determinant for trust. Trust (β = 0.216, p = 0.000) affects the adoption of online tax filing systems. In contrast, barriers and supportive mechanisms (β = − 0.030, p = 0.527) did not significantly moderate the relationship between trust and adoption. The implication of these results is that trust and usage of online tax filing systems can be improved by increasing security features, addressing privacy concerns, and improving usability. This research helps fill a gap in the existing literature on technology acceptance and trust in digital platforms as enabling processes in changing national behavior, whilst providing practitioners with policy recommendations to improve system security, usability, and citizen awareness to facilitate greater adoption of online tax filing services in Bangladesh.