Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Privacy

Struggling With Privacy Tradeoffs in Digital Era

Would you allow your insurance company to monitor your driving for a discount? Or let a “smart thermostat” save energy by tracking your family’s movements around your home?

These are among the constant stream of privacy tradeoffs Americans face in a digital era where their activities, shopping and other personal data can be tracked easily.

Would you allow your insurance company to monitor your driving for a discount? Or let a “smart thermostat” save energy by tracking your family’s movements around your home?

These are among the constant stream of privacy tradeoffs Americans face in a digital era where their activities, shopping and other personal data can be tracked easily.

A Pew Research Center survey released Thursday found no consistent pattern on decisions to give up privacy in return for discounts, rewards or other benefits:

• A majority (52 percent) of those surveyed said they would allow their medical data to be uploaded to a secure site in order to allow their doctor to keep track of their health.

• But only 27 percent said it was acceptable for a thermostat sensor to monitor movements in the home to potentially save on energy costs.

• 47 percent said it was OK for retailers to keep track of shopping habits to offer discounts, while 32 percent said it was not acceptable.

“Many policy makers and companies are anxious to know where Americans draw the line on privacy — when they will resist privacy intrusions and when they are comfortable with sharing personal data,” said Pew researcher Lee Rainie.

“These findings show how people’s decisions are often context-specific and contingent. A phrase that summarizes their attitudes is, ‘It depends.’ Most are likely to consider options on a case-by-case basis, rather than apply hard-and-fast privacy rules,” Rainie added.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

The survey found a majority (54 to 24 percent) said it would be acceptable for employers to install monitoring cameras following a series of workplace thefts.

But many seemed worried about how much information is being shared by social media.

Asked about a scenario in which a free social media platform allows people to connect with friends in exchange for sharing data to deliver advertisements, just one in three said this was acceptable, and 51 percent disagreed.

Some comments received in the survey offered insights into Americans’ privacy concerns.

Many fear their personal information is vulnerable, despite pledges to keep it secure.

“The ‘secure’ sites are continually making the news when they are hacked,” one respondent said.

Smartphone location data is especially sensitive: One survey participant said, “I continually deny location services on my phone because I don’t want the chance of ads coming up.”

And several said marketing based on personal data or tracking was disturbing.

“I look at one thing online and then see it on every single site for weeks. At first — intriguing. Then creepy,” one participant said.

The report was based on a survey of 461 adults in January and February 2015, and augmented with discussions with nine focus groups. The margin of error was estimated at 5.8 percentage points.

Written By

AFP 2023

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Join the session as we discuss the challenges and best practices for cybersecurity leaders managing cloud identities.

Register

SecurityWeek’s Ransomware Resilience and Recovery Summit helps businesses to plan, prepare, and recover from a ransomware incident.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Artificial Intelligence

Two of humanity’s greatest drivers, greed and curiosity, will push AI development forward. Our only hope is that we can control it.

Cybersecurity Funding

Los Gatos, Calif-based data protection and privacy firm Titaniam has raised $6 million seed funding from Refinery Ventures, with participation from Fusion Fund, Shasta...

Privacy

Many in the United States see TikTok, the highly popular video-sharing app owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, as a threat to national security.The following is...

Privacy

Employees of Chinese tech giant ByteDance improperly accessed data from social media platform TikTok to track journalists in a bid to identify the source...

Application Security

Open banking can be described as a perfect storm for cybersecurity. At one end, small startups with financial acumen but little or no security...

Mobile & Wireless

As smartphone manufacturers are improving the ear speakers in their devices, it can become easier for malicious actors to leverage a particular side-channel for...

Government

The proposed UK Online Safety Bill is the enactment of two long held government desires: the removal of harmful internet content, and visibility into...

Cloud Security

AWS has announced that server-side encryption (SSE-S3) is now enabled by default for all Simple Storage Service (S3) buckets.