Online privacy worldwide - statistics & facts

The pushback against Big Tech

With only about 30 percent of Europeans claiming they would delete a default search app they did not like, recent debate has been sparked in the area of pre-installed applications on smart devices which ultimately locks users – and their personal data - into a single ecosystem run by big-tech figures such as Google or Apple. It appears that users are moderately aware of this, with smart devices ranking among the three least-trusted parties, alongside social media and governments when it came to data sharing. Meanwhile, healthcare providers are the most trusted parties, with an overall confidence score of 89 percent globally. In the United States, medical data is also the most valuable form of data targeted, with data breaches within the healthcare sector costing the most – an average of 7 million U.S. dollars, ahead of both the energy and financial industries. Here, valuable data such as medical history, patient billing information and prescription records makes the sector a particularly attractive target for cybercrime organizations.

Rising privacy concerns

Skepticism is high in India and the United States, with 86 and 75 percent of internet users respectively claiming they are proactively looking for ways to secure themselves online. Common measures here include strong password-selection, the use of two-factor authentication and switching to privacy-oriented browsers such as DuckDuckGo which has risen in popularity within the United States since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. With most of the world being forced into lockdown and onto their mobile devices, the number of users agreeing to share their location via mobile apps increased in 2020 – most notably in Latin America and the Caribbean. This was undoubtedly intensified by the introduction of contact-tracing apps, which has since sparked additional privacy-related concerns.

This text provides general information. Statista assumes no liability for the information given being complete or correct. Due to varying update cycles, statistics can display more up-to-date data than referenced in the text.