Most Americans Continue to Have Privacy and Security Concerns, Survey Finds

https://www.ntia.doc.gov/blog/2018/most-americans-continue-have-privacy-and-security-concerns-ntia-survey-finds

by elsewhen • 8 years ago

90 11 8 years ago

ntia.doc.gov

dang2• 8 years ago

Submitted title was "Americans' Concern with Privacy and Security Are Declining". Please don't editorialize in submission titles. This is in the site guidelines:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

mehrdadn• 8 years ago

Wow, that is quite the change. Thanks for fixing this.

oliwarner2• 8 years ago

The guidelines also say:

please use the original title, unless it is misleading

The submitted title there was far closer to the data than the page title.

dang2• 8 years ago

I had that same question, but it's not obviously the case. The article addresses the decline, saying that it's mostly that people aren't worrying so much about identity theft. That sounds plausible, since identity theft is not a top-of-mind issue among the privacy-conscious commenters of HN either.

That plus the fact that the article isn't obviously tendentious makes it likely that the title was chosen by the author to represent the survey findings carefully. If so, it's unfair for an HN submitter to invert it. What would be fair is to post a comment to the thread pointing out the possible discrepancy.

sonofblah• 8 years ago

"However, the 2017 survey showed a decline in households reporting concerns and avoiding certain online activities compared with the 2015 survey, which first asked these questions. The proportion of online households reporting privacy or security concerns fell from 84 percent to 73 percent during this period. Similarly, the proportion of online households that said privacy concerns stopped them from doing certain online activities dropped from 45 percent to 33 percent."

zigzaggy• 8 years ago

This must be a case of boiling the frog slowly. I probably qualify as overly concerned with privacy (some might say obsessed). But even I am feeling the fatigue that comes along with the daily news of data leaks, and stories about untrustworthy leadership (public and private). Or maybe, because of my views, I am more fatigued? Either way, it's exhausting. And I understand why people would just succumb to it all.

I'm rambling, I guess. But I am disappointed in the results of this study. Once I had faith that people would wake up over time. But that faith is slipping away...

ImNotBeingADick• 8 years ago

A lot of unneeded info that is now required.

I'm surprised email and facebook doesn't demand your SSN.

r00fus• 8 years ago

Im pretty sure that a) demanding SSN/DL would cause a mass exodus that would have a bottom line impact for FB b) FB probably already have it through other data sources matched with your FB history

wpdev_63• 8 years ago

Imagine if there were some sort of legal apparatus to prevent company employees and 'other' agents from invading your privacy.

It should be trivial for 99% of companies to anonymize and scramble user data so that employees do not have access to it. There's no reason for it.

jerf• 8 years ago

"It should be trivial for 99% of companies to anonymize and scramble user data so that employees do not have access to it. There's no reason for it."

It isn't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-anonymization

I advocate for in practice behaving as if it is not possible, and simply saying that production data must be restricted. Exceptions can be made for certain types of aggregate data, but one of the lessons of a lot of people's work is that it's really, really easy to cross the line back to the data being identifiable again without you even knowing you did it.

Also, I don't mean that wikipedia link as a complete explanation per se, but the starting point for a journey, if you want to take it.

oliwarner2• 8 years ago

That was not the article I expected to read after seeing that title. Did the headline not read the rest? (Edit I am talking about the current title, not the old one).

It's technically accurate but in just two years the data shows a massive decrease in every area of concern bar one (which remained static). Headline should be that "internet users are give up remaining vestiges of privacy security and tact".

What's NTIA's goal here? To get us to the point where we fearlessly do anything online? Trust our big-data overlords? Being a little sceptical, a little fearful of these privacy-nuking business models is not unhealthy.

Most Americans Continue to Have Privacy and Security Concerns, Survey Finds

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