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Privacy in the Digital Age
Lee Rainie (@lrainie)Director, Internet, Science, and Technology Research
Pew Research Center6.3.15
WAN-IFRA – World Media Policy Forum
Background
• Surveys of U.S. adults – post-Snowden• Privacy issues are jumbled together
in people’s heads and don’t unpack easily:–Sur-veillance–Sous-veillance–Co-veillance
1. The balance of forces has shifted in the networkedage. People arenow “public bydefault and private by effort.” -- danah boyd
Personal information online% of adult internet users who say this information about them is available online
Your political party / affiliation
Video of you
Your home phone number
Your cell number
Which groups / orgs you belong to
Your home address
Things you’ve written using your name
Your employer / company you work for
Your email address
Your birth date
A photo of you
0% 20% 40% 60% 80%
20%
21%
21%
24%
29%
30%
38%
44%
46%
50%
66%
Who users try to avoid % of adult internet users who say they have used the internet in ways to avoid being observed or seen by …
Law enforcement
The government
Companies / people who run the website you visited
Companies / people who might want payment for files you download
Employer, supervisor, coworkers
Family members or romantic partner
People who might criticize / harass you
People from your past
Certain friends
Advertisers
Hackers or criminals
0% 10% 20% 30% 40%
4%
5%
6%
6%
11%
14%
17%
19%
19%
28%
33%
2. Privacy is not binary / context matters
3. Personal control / agency matters
4. Most accept that certain trade-offs are part of the bargain
55% “agree” or “strongly agree” with the statement: “I am willing to share some information about myself with companies in order to use online services for free.”
5. The young are more focused on networked privacy than their elders
• Those ages 18-29 are more likely than older adults to say:• They take steps to limit the amount of personal
information available about them online—44% of young adult internet users say this.
• They change privacy settings – 71% of social networking users ages 18-29 have changed privacy settings on their profile to limit what they share with others online.
• They delete unwanted comments – 47% social networking users ages 18-29 have deleted comments that others have made on their profile.
• They remove their name from photos – 41% of social networking users ages 18-29 say they have removed their name from photos that were tagged to identify them.
Young adults are the most likely to have had major problems with personal information and identity
0%
10%
20%
30% 28%23%
7%
13% 11%
22%
15% 14%
6% 4%
17%
2%
11%
2% 1%
9%
3%8%
4%
Ages 18-29 Ages 30-49 Ages 50-64 Ages 65+
6. Many know they do not know what is going on …. Those who know the most are more worried and wary
7. Many are resigned – some are even hopeless – and their trust is fading
How confident are you that your records at these places will remain private and secure?
Online advertisers
Social media
Search engines
Retailers
Email provider
Cell telephone
Government agencies
Cable TV
Landline telephone
Credit card
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
76%
69%
66%
61%
57%
56%
55%
54%
50%
46%
Not too confident / Not at all confident
Changes in laws would help
8. Changes in law could make a difference
• 68% of internet users believe current laws are not good enough in protecting people’s privacy online.
• 64% believe the government should do more to regulate advertisers, compared with 34% who think the government should not get more involved.
• When asked if they feel as though their own efforts to protect the privacy of their personal information online are sufficient, 61% say they feel as though they “would like to do more,” while 37% say they “already do enough.”
• 88% of adults “agree” (49%) or “strongly agree” (39%) that it would be very difficult to remove inaccurate information about them online.
