
Privacy is sometimes described as being only an issue in Europe and the US, but Microsoft’s second annual survey of internet users worldwide suggests otherwise. The survey, which surveyed 12,000 people in China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, Russia and Turkey (as well as several Western countries), found that, in every country, privacy was the most consistently expressed concern.
In eleven of the twelve countries surveyed, with India the only exception, respondents say that technology’s effect on privacy was mostly negative. Majorities of respondents in every country but India and Indonesia say current legal protections for users of personal technology are insufficient, and only in those two countries do most respondents feel fully aware of the types of personal information collected about them.