Germans take a 'black-and-white view' of online privacy
One out of three Germans has a take it or leave it attitude when it
comes to online data protection, a new survey shows. Better information
on the risks and advantages of the Internet would benefit German users.
Some 30 percent of
Germans either don't care about online privacy or entirely avoid putting
personal data online, according to a study published Tuesday by the
Federal Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and
New Media (BITKOM).
"Many Internet users
have a black-and-white view of privacy on the Internet," said Dieter
Kempf, the industry trade group's head, in a statement, adding that need
to find a balance between carelessness and overprotection.
The study showed that
14 percent of German Internet users did not care how their personal
information was collected and used online while 16 percent of the 1,002
people polled said privacy concerns kept them from using online banking
or buying or selling goods via the Internet.
Generation gap
 Nearly one out of four Germans over 65 use the Internet
That differences in
data protection views largely split depending on the interviewee's age
did surprise Thomas Hoeren, a professor of communications law at the
University of Münster.
"We have a gap between
young Germans who say they live in a post-privacy world and are not
interested in data protection and older generation that is still very
rigid regarding their data protection," Hoeren told Deutsche Welle.
Across age lines, 47
percent of Germans said they don't feel well-informed enough to protect
their own privacy online, the high-tech lobby group's study showed.
Younger people were more likely than older Internet users to say they
knew could keep their personal data safe.
Overall, 42 percent of
Germans trust that the information they put online is secure while 55
percent said they were skeptical their personal information wouldn't be
misused.
Improving education
when it comes to the risks and advantages of using the Internet is key
to tempering views on data protection, Hoeren said.
"The Internet is not bad, as such," he said. "You have to know how to use it so that it's your decision to do something."
Author: Sean Sinico
Editor: Cyrus Farivar
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15196952,00.html
| 
