Marseille edit
Entitled "the protection of personal data", the study was conducted between 28 and 30th August, 2017 in a representative national sample of 1,002 French people at the age of 18 and more. A population was invested in the digital life but more and more worried about the protection of its personal data.
The private life is not a long quiet river
So, 85% of people asked say that they were worried about this problem. There are four points more compared with the previous study of 2014 realized by Orange. 90% of them worry about their on-line data, that is an increase of five points in three years.
According to the poll, this "increasing concern" is to place in the context of hacking and cyber attack which the media have reported recently. It must be also bound with a stronger on-line activity:
51% of French people pay "often" by this way (39% of them in 2014).
39% of them store personal documents (e-mails, photos, videos, diverse files). There was 31% in the previous study. More than 50% of them publishes some visual or textual contents on the social networks. It is a stable figure compared with one in 2014.
This greater exposure does not prevent them from being worried about the risk of hacking or violation of their private life. The hacking of their account ID is the risk which worries them most, related to the unauthorized use of personal information. However, this figure decreases to ten points compared with one in 2014 (from 65% to 55 %). An exception where all the causes for concern are increasing by the protection of the children against the risks of Internet for the confidentiality of personal information including the impossibility to delete the latter, those related to the on-line publication of unauthorized contents and the disappearance or the loss of documents.
The pass troubles
Being conscious of the stakes in data protection personal, French people show vigilance. They adopt a proactive attitude by resorting the best practice:
93% update their antivirus and firewalls; 52% make it even very regularly.
57% control their on-line reputation. They do not hesitate to erase personal data which do not suit to them.
On the contrary, they avoid more and more practice at risk:
They are less and less numerous to seize their personal address and phone number in a forum (23% vs 28 % three years ago).
They are no more than 17% to provide letter channels by e-mail, which are ten points less than those in 2014.*
Especially, the appeal to the password systematized for all the equipments. 86% of French people use it for their professional computer, 76% for their personal computer, 73% for their mobile and 61% for their tablet. In each case, figures are increasing compared with ones in 2014. However, their behavior is still far from being optimal because 74% of them use the same password in all their accounts, which was more than 5% four years ago. For the CSA, this rigorous lack is to be imputed to the reduction of the number of on-line accounts.
Besides, if the fame of the cloud is in a sharp rise (92% them declare to know what that is), French people do not frankly agree in the idea that public or economic actors exploit it (55% are for companies, 44% for local authorities, 42% for the State).
A variable-geometry confidence
Consequence of this general concern relating to the protection of their personal data, the French do not have much confidence to the actors of the digital technology, in particular, the social networks (10%), search engines (20 %) and the telecom operators (10%). It is not the case of the banks which have trust more than a half of people asked. It's the same as the State because 41% of French people trust in the use of their personal data.
It is the curious figure in the contradiction with their "increasing concern" for this subject related to the cyber security which is also involved in the States (Snowden affair, hacking of the American and French election campaigns). Besides, the vote of numerous laws since a few years in the field of the safety and susceptible to ask question towards the protection of the private life (for example, the attacks of the government against the encryption which arouses the concern of the National council for the digital technology) has resulted in the confidence of the State population because the percentage was 33% in 2014. 61% of French people declare to trust in the definition and the establishment of a protective regulatory framework. At the top, there is the national Commission of computing and the liberties (CNIL) which has the confidence of 77% of French people. At the bottom, the European Union reaches a ceiling at 46%.
In fact, children of the digital technology has (partially) their name
Is there a millennial specificity of the personal data protection? This category of the population aged from 18 to 24 years was rocked by the new information technologies and the communications. It does not mean that they are more skillful in their use. However, it is advisable to notice in reading of this poll that they are more sensitive on this matter compared with the whole population. If they are more active on-line, they are also more worried about the protection of their personal data (93% vs 90 %; 48% vs 39% for those who say "very worried"). Consequently, they are more numerous to take measures to protect them whether it is to watch their e-reputation (72% vs 57% of French people) or to delete the improper information (61% vs 33%). On the other hand, there is of the carelessness in the passwords’ management because they are situated in the general average with the same inclination to resort systematically to the same code.
Article written by Thierry Randretsa