Americans Flunked This Test on Online Privacy
Many consumers want control over their personal details. But few understand how online tracking works, says a new report from the University of Pennsylvania.
Many people in the United States would like to control the information that companies can learn about them online. Yet when presented with a series of true-or-false questions about how digital devices and services track users, most Americans struggled to answer them, according to a report published on Tuesday by the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.
The report analyzed the results of a data privacy survey that included more than 2,000 adults in the United States. Very few of the respondents said they trusted the way online services handled their personal data.
The survey also tested people’s knowledge about how apps, websites and digital devices may amass and disclose information about people’s health, TV-viewing habits and doorbell camera videos. Although many understood how companies can track their emails and website visits, a majority seemed unaware that there are only limited federal protections for the kinds of personal data that online services can collect about consumers.
