- 78.4 per cent of Germans take measures to protect personal data on the Internet
- According to the eco survey, users restrict the permissions of apps (49.7 per cent), configure the Internet browser (40.2 per cent) and use social media in a conscious manner (35.2 per cent).
- 28.7 per cent even conceal the cameras on laptops and/or smartphones
Five years after the General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR) came into force on 25 May, most consumers in Germany are making a conscious decision to protect their personal data on the Internet. This is shown by a representative Civey survey commissioned by eco – Association of the Internet Industry. More than three quarters (78.4 per cent) of the 2,500 respondents named at least one active data protection measure: 49.7 per cent restrict app permissions on their smartphone, 40.2 per cent configure their Internet browser to protect their data and 35.2 per cent use social media in a conscious manner with their personal data in mind. In contrast, only 8.1 per cent of respondents configure their own smart home devices for more data protection.
GDPR promotes free movement of data in the EU Single Market
The GDPR came into force in 2018 to standardise the processing of personal data, both private and public, across the EU. This is intended to ensure the protection of personal data within the European Union on the one hand, and to guarantee the free movement of data within the European Single Market on the other. “Five years after its entry into force, this fundamental goal has been achieved to a large extent, even if the concrete format – especially in Germany – has not yet been fully standardised,” says eco’s Managing Director Alexander Rabe.
Nevertheless, since the GDPR’s entry into force in 2018, Rabe sees the ongoing efforts to standardise European data protection regulations as being fundamentally positive and necessary as a condition for standardising the European Digital Single Market. As he goes on to say: “A functioning data protection and GDPR-compliant action strengthen trust in digital services and applications.”
“In Germany in particular, however, we need to do more to counteract occasional contradictory fragmentation and, above all, excessive bureaucracy in the 16 different interpretations of the data protection commissioners of the federal states.
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