It is now commonly believed that young people do not care about privacy. They post pictures online, share details of their daily life for (almost) all to see.
A recently published report: “How Different are Young Adults from Older Adults When it Comes to Information Privacy Attitudes and Policies” by Chris Hoofnagle, Jennifer King, Su Li and Joseph Turow, does not agree.
The authors found that young American adults (aged 18-24) do not seem to have fundamentally different views regarding privacy than older adults.
The report presents a set of tables showing poll results by age categories. People had been asked to answer several privacy-related questions. Indeed, the results do not show huge discrepancies between the views of young adults and of older people regarding privacy.
Incidentally, I found some results very intriguing, regardless of the age category. When asked which one of the most important ways, beyond a fine, a company that use a person’s information illegally might be punished, 35% of the sample answered that “executives who are responsible should face jail time.” 40% of the 18-24 category agree with that statement…
This is following the much - commented Google case in Italy, where executives were tried in a criminal court for having violated the privacy of an Italian teen. Google had hosted (on YouTube) a video of the teen being bullied, and Google executives were sentenced to six-months in jail. The sentence was suspended.
This was an Italian case. France’s criminal law also protects privacy. Pursuant to article 226-1 of the Fench criminal Code, one year's imprisonment and a fine of €45,000 is incurred for any willful privacy violation, either by intercepting private conversations or recording or transmitting a person’s image while she is a in private place.
So even younger Americans seem to favor the criminalization of privacy breaches. If this trend endures, one could see more and more bills, either state bills or federal bills, aiming at making privacy breaches a crime.
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