The Harris Poll^® #17, March 19, 2003

Most People Are "Privacy Pragmatists" Who, While Concerned about Privacy, Will Sometimes Trade It Off for Other Benefits

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When it comes to feelings about privacy, we are not all the same.

In our work on this topic with privacy expert, Dr. Alan Westin, president and publisher, Privacy & American Business, we find three very different groups. Some people feel very strongly about privacy matters. They tend to feel that they have lost a lot of their privacy and are strongly resistant to any further erosion of it. We call them privacy fundamentalists, and they are currently about a quarter (26%) of all adults.

At the other extreme there are people who have no real concerns about privacy and who have far less anxiety about how other people and organizations are using information about them. We call them privacy unconcerned and they are about ten percent of all adults.

The third, and by far the largest group, now almost two-thirds of all adults (64%) are what we call privacy pragmatists, who have strong feelings about privacy and are very concerned to protect themselves from the abuse or misuse of their personal information by companies or government agencies.

However, they are – to a far greater degree than the privacy fundamentalists – often willing to allow people to have access to, and to use, their personal information where they understand the reasons for its use, where they see tangible benefits for so doing and when they believe care is taken to prevent the misuse of this information.

Since 1999 the numbers in each segment have varied somewhat. Compared to nine years ago, privacy pragmatists have increased from 54% to 64%, while the privacy unconcerned have declined from 22% to 10% of all adults.

This analysis is based on replies to three questions included in a recent Harris Poll conducted by telephone by Harris Interactive^® with a nationwide cross section of 1,010 adults. The survey was fielded between February 12 and 16, 2003.

Replies to three questions show that:

• 69% of adults agree, "consumers have lost all control over how personal information is collected and used by companies." This is a decline of eleven points from 80% who felt this way in 1999.
  
• 54% of the public disagree that "most businesses handle the personal information they collect about consumers in a proper and confidential way." This is an increase of nineteen points from only 35% who felt this way in 1999.
  
• 53% of all adults disagree that "existing laws and organizational practices provide a reasonable level of protection for consumer privacy today." This is an increase of fifteen points from 38% in 1999.

Several dimensions of privacy have become less important in recent years, even though most people still feel they are extremely important. Specifically:

• Those who feel that being able to share confidential a matter with someone they trust is extremely important have fallen from 83% in 1994 to a still-high 76%.
  
• Those who feel that not having someone watch them or listen to them without their permission is extremely important have fallen from 79% in 1994 to a still high 73%.

However, by far the largest decline in concern is found among those who feel that not being monitored at work is extremely important—they have fallen from 65% in 1994 to only 42% now. This, we believe, reflects the fact that monitoring of telephone call center conversations is now so widespread and is, therefore, acceptable to many more people.

One dimension of privacy has become much more important than it used to be. Those who think that not being disturbed at home is extremely important have increased from 49% in 1994 to 62% now – surely as a direct result of the growth of telemarketing calls.

After reviewing these results, Dr. Alan Westin commented, "While the consumer and daily-life privacy dimensions highlighted here are still very important to most Americans, we are only beginning to observe, in public opinion research, how the citizen-privacy issues presented by terrorism are changing prior segmentations. How the public will react to proposals for in-depth government monitoring of consumer transactions and communications, in the search for terrorists, will be increasingly the focus of privacy debates in this decade."

Humphrey Taylor is the chairman of The Harris Poll^®, Harris Interactive.

Base: All adults

"For each of the following statements, how strongly do you agree or disagree?"

(not sure’s not included)

Base: All adults

"Privacy means different things to different people. I am going to read you a list of different aspects of privacy. Please tell me how important is (Interviewer note: read each item) – is it extremely important, somewhat important, not very important or not important at all?"

(not sure’s not included)

Base: All adults

The Harris Poll^® was conducted by telephone within the United States between February 12 and 16, 2003 among a nationwide cross section of 1,010 adults (ages 18+). Figures for age, sex, race, education, number of adults and number of voice/telephone lines in the household were weighted where necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population.

In theory, with a probability sample of this size, one can say with 95 percent certainty that the results have a statistical precision of plus or minus 3 percentage points of what they would be if the entire adult population had been polled with complete accuracy. Unfortunately, there are several other possible sources of error in all polls or surveys that are probably more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. They include refusals to be interviewed (non-response), question wording and question order, interviewer bias, weighting by demographic control data and screening (e.g., for likely voters). It is impossible to quantify the errors that may result from these factors.

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J18203
Q655, Q656, Q670