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Confidentiality in a Digital Environment: Attitudes of the Population

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Abstract

The results of studying the attitude of the population to the confidentiality of personal data on the Internet are presented. In empirical terms, this article is based on a representative survey of the Moscow population of May‒June 2020. It is recorded that the practice of presenting personal information when using various Internet services has become widespread. At the same time, two-thirds of the respondents expressed concerns about the security of personal information on the Internet. According to a binary regression model, the strongest predictors of this anxiety correlate with the prevailing privacy attitudes among respondents, practices of leaving personal information on the network (primarily about one’s children), negative assessments of security provision as a norm of life in a democratic society, and general dissatisfaction with the functioning of the political system.

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Notes

  1. Under the GDPR, personal data is defined as any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person. The latter can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular, by reference to an identifier such as a name; an identification number; location data; an online identifier; or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural, or social identity of that natural person.

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Funding

This study was performed by the ISPR FCTAS RAS within Program of Basic Research of State Academies of Sciences for 2013‒2020, no. 185 “Civilizational Changes in Modern Russia: Spiritual Processes, Values, and Ideals” in accordance with the state R&D order Sociocultural and Religious Processes in Modern Russia.

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Correspondence to M. M. Nazarov or E. A. Kublitskaya.

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Translated by B. Alekseev

Mikhail Mikhailovich Nazarov is Chief Researcher of the RAS Institute of Sociopolitical Research of the Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology (ISPR FCTAS RAS). Elena Aleksandrovna Kublitskaya is Head of the Center for Sociology of Religion and Sociocultural Processes at the same institute.

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Nazarov, M.M., Kublitskaya, E.A. Confidentiality in a Digital Environment: Attitudes of the Population. Her. Russ. Acad. Sci. 91, 163–169 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1019331621010056

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S1019331621010056

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