People often share their personal data online despite reporting that they should not. They also show surprise and distress when data is used in ways they authorize despite giving consent. But, what underlies this inconsistency in people’s thinking? In the present study, we investigated the proposal that thinking about control over information, or informational autonomy, likely underlies variability in thinking about privacy and data ownership. Namely, we propose that threats to one’s autonomy might account for the aforementioned changes in people’s concern for their data. To test this account, we used a survey-style design to measure how a hypothetical threat to the self, and thereby control, influenced adults’ (N = 51) judgments about the ownership and privacy of their personal data. The threat was police lawfully obtaining their data with a warrant. We found that privacy and ownership judgments significantly increased over time. We also found that the variability in participants’ ownership and privacy judgments was related. Together, our findings suggest that privacy and ownership likely have a shared psychological basis, and this shared psychology can likely explain the variability in people’s judgments about personal data across time.