A Generative Model of Contextual Integrity: Appropriate vs. Inappropriate Information Sharing
Abstract
Contextual integrity (CI) holds that appropriate information flow depends on context-specific norms. The same disclosure may be appropriate in one context and inappropriate in another. As actors handle private user data in multi-actor pipelines, we ask whether they track these norms faithfully under social and contextual pressure. We build a generative model of CI in multi-actor systems: scenarios drawn from CI's taxonomies, a generation pipeline, multi-actor simulation, and a two-sided appropriateness metric. The metric scores both withholding when norms forbid sharing and sharing when they permit it. Across three intervention axes (decision logic, cognitive profile, and model choice), no actor-level lever closes both sides of the appropriateness gap; protection and utility trade off in every variant we tested. Closing the gap may require mechanisms beyond the actor level, such as CI-grounded policy and institution design.