Privacy Rights

Much of the focus has been on government surveillance, though there are also significant concerns about how businesses use data.

Analysis of over 1 million apps in Google’s Android operating system in 2014 shows apps can seek 235 different kinds of permissions from smartphone users. The average app asks for five permissions.

Revelations in September 2013 that the U.S. government had monitored the private communications of Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff had strained relations between the two countries.

Pew Research Center has been studying various dimensions of the issue. Here are some key findings from our public opinion surveys.

Many Americans want control over their personal information and freedom from observation during the activities of their daily lives, but they are not confident that the government agencies or businesses that collect data about them can keep that information private and secure.

Nearly two years after Snowden's revelations, 87% of Americans say they have heard about U.S. surveillance programs. Among them, 25% say they have changed their own technological behaviors in some way.

Lee Rainie presents survey findings about how people navigate privacy in a networked world in their relationship with government, commercial enterprises and each other.

Pew Research Center has been studying Americans’ attitudes about their own personal information security and that of their families for years. Here are a few highlights.

Will governments and corporations expand current tracking policies? Or will innovators create new ways for individuals to control personal information? Experts are divided on whether a secure and balanced privacy-rights infrastructure will be in place by 2025.