Survey Says: Americans Concerned About Data Collection Practices

Well maybe not concerned enough to change their practices, but concerned.

When asked if their data is more secure, less secure or about the same as compared to five years ago, 70 percent said their data was less secure.  6 percent said it was more secure.

On the side of “gee, you mean I have to do something about it?”, 97 percent say they are asked to approve privacy policy notices, but only 9 percent say that they always read it and another 13 percent say they often read it.  That means that three-quarters of the users don’t read what they are agreeing to.  38 percent say they sometimes read the polices and 36 percent say they never read them.

Of those people who say that they at least sometimes read the privacy policies, on 22 percent say they read it to the end.

On top of that 63 percent said that they know very little or nothing about the privacy laws that protect them.

When it comes to being tracked, 72 percent said that all, almost all, or most of what they do on their phone is being tracked with an additional 19% saying that some of what they do is being tracked.  That leaves 9 percent who think that they are not being tracked. Hmm?

47 percent think the government is tracking them.

69 percent feel that their offline behavior including where they are and whom they are talking with – OFFLINE – is being tracked by the government.

84 percent say that they feel that they have little to no control over the information that the government collects and 81 percent feel the same way about information companies collect about them.

81 percent of the people think that the risks of data collection about them outweigh the benefits and 66 percent say the same thing about government data collection.

72 percent say they personally benefit very little or none from the collection of their data by companies and even ore surprisingly, 76 percent say that they don’t get much benefit from government data collection.

Certainly an interesting set of information, which could explain why there was so much support for privacy legislation in a variety of states.

You can find more information about the Pew report here.

by