As part of the Data Privacy Day to be held next Saturday, four companies that defend the protection of personal data have organized a major survey to better understand the perception of these issues among the French.
Finally, if the vast majority of French people say they are well aware of data protection issues computer And smartphones represents, a minority actually acts to protect itself. A support problem according to the interviewees, which Qwant, Proton, Olvid and Murena are trying to solve by publishing an explanatory guide of the process.
the privacy paradox still exists
According to these four companies behind the first barometer of its kind, created with the company Kantar ahead of the European Data Protection Day, 72% of respondents are aware of the disclosure of their data online. More importantly, 92% of French people say they are aware of and concerned about these issues.
However, according to the survey, only 48% of respondents say they take steps to protect themselves, while 68% say they know the means of protection. A striking case of what is commonly called the privacy paradoxterm that appeared in the first half of the 2000s.
According to the researchers, people are torn between protecting their online privacy and wanting to enjoy the benefits of new technologies. As a concrete example proposed by the barometer, the four actors mention the top 4 information to be protected as a priority for these people.
- Personal financial information: 76%
- Personally Identifiable Information: 69%
- Medical information: 37%
- Personal photos and videos: 37%
Web searches (11%), calendar/agenda (5%) and political opinions (4%) are the least important data to protect in the eyes of the interviewees. A mistake according to the group of companies, which emphasizes the amount of information very precise about private life that can be extracted from a simple online diary.
Limited security methods
As we said, only 48% of respondents say they take steps to protect their privacy online. But, as the study points out, these solutions are very often insufficient in the face of the voracity of the tech giants and are limited to classic settings. The first concerns of these people are to protect their mailbox (66%), protect their social networks (59%), protect their browser (47%) and their search engine (46%).
To achieve all this, the most used methods are quite classic and sometimes not suited to their needs. The barometer indicates that 44% of these people disable location tracking on their devices, 39% use a cookie blocker, 25% use private browsing and 13% use a VPN. These shares increase significantly in the 18-24 age group, who are more aware of these issues and more inclined to act in this direction. Only 8% of respondents said they use a private search engine and 6% a private messaging service, the protection of which is still one of their priorities.
An important figure in all this study published publicly on the Internet, 86% of French people want more support and information on methods of protecting privacy. To partially satisfy this need, Proton, Qwant, OIvid and Musena published a practical guide (PDF) to provide as much background information on these topics as possible.