Mark Wilson, Fast Company; Most people don’t understand privacy, and that’s a huge opportunity for design
New
research highlights just how clueless we are when it comes to digital
privacy. It’s time for companies to step up and fill in the gaps.
"About half of Americans don’t even recognize that privacy policies
are a binding contract between websites and their users in the first
place.
The findings come courtesy of a new report by Pew Research,
which polled 4,727 U.S. adults with a straightforward, 10-question
test. It checked for basic knowledge about phishing, online advertising,
and cookies. Only 20% of people answered 7 of 10 questions correctly.
Just as devastating? Only 2% of people got all 10 questions right...
It’s easy to blame people in these situations. Get educated about
technology already! Learn your privacy rights! Isn’t it obvious all that
legalese constitutes a binding contract? But the fact is, people are
pretty smart when given the right opportunity. Everyone you know
understands, more or less, how to use relatively complicated platforms
like email and social media. They understand both how to pull the levers
and what those levers do. What they don’t understand is who might be
watching those levers being pulled, why they’re allowed to be watching,
and for what purpose they are watching in the first place."
