More than half of Europeans don't trust public authorities with their data

61% of Europeans don’t trust public authorities with their data, according to Reboot Online.

Interested in information privacy, Reboot Online analysed the latest data from the European Commission to discover which European citizens trust the public authorities in their country with personal data the least. The company found that citizens in Spain (78%) trust the public authorities with their data the least.

In the second position is Ireland, where 73% of people are skeptical about how public authorities in the country handle their data. Belgium, France, and the United Kingdom are in joint third place as 68% of citizens in each country lack confidence in the public authorities’ ability to oversee their data securely and diligently. In the fourth spot is Bulgaria, where 67% of citizens do not have full faith in the management of their data by public authorities.

Netherlands, Cyprus, Lithuania, and Poland are among the European countries where 59% of citizens mistrust the way public authorities keep and utilise their data, respectively ranking joint tenth.

On the other end in 19th place, it seems individuals in Finland are most assured by public authorities’ supervision of their data, with only 29% of Finns questioning the security of their data with public authorities. Just above Finland is Estonia in 18th position, where 2 in 5 citizens are not entirely convinced if public authorities in the country are competently looking after their data.

Public authorities include state governments, local governments, police – i.e. any authority that is the government, controlled/funded/linked to the government or its function could be defined as governmental.

A total number of 27,607 Europeans were surveyed for the research. The exact question respondents were asked is ‘Are you concerned that your online personal information is not kept secure by public authorities?’ and the percentage figures for each European country in the research represent those that are concerned.