In a new Flash Eurobarometer survey on Data Protection conducted in January 2008, the European Commission gives a detailed panoroma on the perceptions, attitudes and views of the EU’s citizens on data protection issues. In this regard, two-thirds of survey participants said they were concerned as to whether organisations that held their personal data handled this data appropriately (64%). Medical services, doctors and various public authorities were more trusted by far, by EU citizens, than private companies and non-profit organisations to keep personal information adequately protected. Compared to previous waves of the survey performed in 1991, 1996 and 2003, respondents’ confidence in organisations’ data privacy policies has increased constantly. Exceptions were the medical services and doctors, non-profit organisations and mail order companies, where confidence has remained at the same level over the last five years.
Participants in the survey were also asked about data protection on the Internet. Most European Internet users feel uneasy when transmitting their personal data over the internet: 82% of Internet users reasoned that data transmission over the Web was not sufficiently secure while only 15% of respondents trusted such data security transfers. However, only a minority of Internet users said they used tools and technologies that increased data security on the Net, i.e. firewalls or cookie filtering (22%).
