Digital 2025: online privacy concerns
Despite pervasive media headlines about online safety, the number of connected adults expressing concern about their online privacy continues to decline.
Indeed, in GWI’s latest round of research, fewer than 3 in 10 internet users aged 16+ said that they’re worried about how companies use their personal data online today, with that figure down a relative 7.1 percent compared with the figure we reported this time two years ago.
Interestingly, worries about online privacy seem to increase with age, with retirees significantly more likely to express concern about online data security than people in younger age groups.
However, people aged 16 to 24 are actually more likely to worry than people aged 25 to 44 are, so we may see these demographic differences evolve over the coming years.
At a country level, internet users in Spain and Portugal are the most likely to worry about how companies use their personal data online, with more than half of connected adults in both countries expressing concern.
But at the other end of the spectrum, internet users in Africa appear to be significantly less concerned, with fewer than 1 in 10 online adults in Morocco saying that they worry about how companies might use their online data.
Cookies please
Meanwhile, we’ve also seen a downward trend in the number of internet users who say that they reject cookies on websites.
Barely 1 in 3 online adults (34.5 percent) now say that they reject cookies at least some of the time, which suggests that nearly two-thirds of us always click “accept all”, and move on with our lives.
People in Western and Southern Europe are the most likely to reject cookies – most likely due to the pervasive “cookie banners” required by EU law – but even then, fewer than half of online adults across the EU, Switzerland and the UK say that decline cookies, even on an occasional basis.
Meanwhile, people across Asia, Africa, and South America seem meaningfully less concerned, with the vast majority of internet users saying that they don’t reject website cookies.
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This article is a sub-section of our Digital 2025 Global Overview Report.
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