4 Out Of 5 People Don’t Want Their Personal Data Collected or Shared Without Consent

Data privacy continues to be a hot topic issue as people look to the Internet to manage just about every aspect of their lives. What data do companies have? How are they using it? How can people have more control over their personal data? Moving into the second part of their study on the issue, Invisibly used it’s Realtime Research tool to survey 1247 people about their sentiment on online data privacy, including sharing and collecting of their personal data and how they feel about targeted online ads.

Highlights

1. 68% of respondents say data privacy is important to them.
2. 82% of respondents support measures that would prevent companies and devices from collecting or sharing their data.
3. 76% of respondents don’t like getting targeted marketing ads online and say it needs to stop.
4. 11% more men than women like getting targeted online ads.

Results

The results show most people are concerned with their online privacy and would support changes that would prevent the collecting and sharing of data without consent. 68% say data privacy is important to them and 82% support measures that would prevent companies and devices from collecting or sharing their data. Most respondents also said they don’t like getting targeted online ads, but men liked it 11% more than women.

The survey shows that 68% of respondents said personal data privacy was important to them while 32% don’t find it important.

The survey revealed that 76% of male respondents, 76% of female respondents and 54% of non-binary respondents say personal data privacy is important to them while 24% of male respondents, 24% of female respondents and 46% of non binary respondents don’t think personal data privacy is important.

According to the survey, a majority of respondents in each age group consider personal data privacy important. That includes 68% of respondents under 18, 71% of respondents 18-40, 88% of respondents 41-54 and 71% of respondents 55+.

When asked if they would support advertising changes that prevent companies and devices from collecting or sharing their data, 82% of overall respondents said they do, while 78% of male respondents, 87% of female respondents, and 55% of non-binary respondents said that they do.

The survey shows that a majority of respondents in each age group support advertising changes that prevent companies and devices from collecting or sharing data about them.  That includes 74% of respondents under 18, 83% of respondents 18-24,  77% of respondents 25-40, 82% of respondents 41-54 and 72% of respondents 55+.

76% of respondents don’t like getting targeted marketing ads online (from data brands have about them), but 24% of respondents said they like the targeted ads because it helped them to discover new products they love.

When it comes to getting targeted marketing ads online, 28% of male respondents, 17% of female respondents and 27% of non-binary respondents said they love targeted ads and they help in finding new products online.

When it comes to receiving targeted marketing ads online (from data brands have about them), the majority of respondents in each age group said they did not like getting them. The data reveals that 75% of respondents under 18, 79% of respondents 18-24,  74% of respondents 25-40, 82% of respondents 41-54 and 77% of respondents 55 and over, said the ads needed to stop.

Breaking down the data and looking at the ages of respondents, 43% of respondents  were under 18, 18% were between the ages of 18-24, 8% were between the ages of 25-40, another 8% of respondents were between the ages of 41-54, and 24% were age 55 and over. Looking at the data, the survey revealed that 36% of respondents identified as male, 43% identified as female, and 21% identified as non-binary.

---

The Process

From April 23rd – May 3rd, 2021, Invisibly surveyed 1247 people to learn how important data privacy is to them, if they support advertising changes that could prevent companies and devices from collecting or sharing their personal data, and how they feel about targeted online marketing ads. We included questions about age and gender to see if this had any significant impact on the results.

We Asked

1. Is personal data privacy important to you?
2. Do you support advertising changes that prevent companies/devices from collecting or sharing data about you?
3. Do you like getting targeted marketing ads online (from data brands have about you)?
4. What is your age?
5. What is your gender?

---

Discussion

Despite the fact that people are incredibly open about their personal lives on social media, the survey results show that people still value their online privacy, and rightfully so. It’s clear that most people don’t want to be tracked by advertisers, even when those ads are relevant to their personal interests, and that people are willing to support measures that stop companies from collecting and selling their personal data. We suspect this is because data collection now is not a consented process, which Invisibly is working to change.

Google and Apple have made changes recently that support data privacy and negatively impact advertisers ability to target people based on their interests. As more people become aware how their data is obtained and used and data privacy is demanded by consumers, advertisers will have to find new ways to share their message. Most importantly, companies will have to find new data sources they use (like Invisibly) where people have opted in and fully consented to sharing their data.

Invisibly Realtime Research surveys differ from traditional online surveys in that the questions are shown to the user on web pages in place of an ad (Figure 1). Unlike Google Surveys, which block access to content until the questions are answered, Realtime Research surveys are optional, thus ensuring that participants are responding voluntarily.