Chapter 1: What are the main concerns consumers have about government data usage?
It's hard to find topics of broad consensus in American life, but data privacy is one of them. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech. I'm Megan McCarty Carino. For years, consumers have worried about how the private sector, namely big tech, handles their personal data.
Now, a new survey from the Center for Democracy and Technology suggests a large majority are also concerned about how the federal government uses their data. We spoke with Elizabeth Laird, director of equity and civic technology at CDT, to learn more.
So we conducted national representative polling, and what we found is the vast majority of people still are very concerned about the personal data that the federal government has about them. And not only that, it's consistent across demographic groups.
So regardless of your political affiliation, your race and ethnicity, your gender, where you live, all of those groups share high levels of concern. And to put that in real numbers, three in four people are concerned about what the federal government knows about them.
Chapter 2: How do demographic factors influence concerns about data privacy?
Yeah, I mean, the stability of the response across all of these different, you know, kind of subsections that that you break down is pretty remarkable.
I agree. And I have to say, you know, we weren't sure that's what we would find. I think we were very open to the possibility that people have resigned themselves and they're so used to getting a notification every other week that organization takes their privacy seriously. And we are unfortunately notifying you that your data has been breached. And that's just all we found.
We found that concern levels still are quite high. And we asked, do you agree that the government has a lot of data about you and there's nothing you can do about it? And the majority of people agreed with that, too. And so I think for for policymakers and practitioners.
Chapter 3: What specific types of data are people worried about regarding government use?
The ingredients of a pretty significant backlash are there and that concern levels are very high. And the American people feel helpless that there's nothing that they can do about it. We'll be right back.
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Chapter 4: What is the chilling effect of data privacy concerns on accessing benefits?
I'm Megan McCarty Carino. We're back with Elizabeth Laird at the Center for Democracy and Technology. Were there specific kinds of data or uses of data that respondents in your survey were particularly worried about?
The one that I've been thinking about a lot, and it's in part because of my background working in state government, we spend so much time thinking about how do we remove barriers so that people who are eligible for benefits and services access them. And those can be lifesaving benefits. They can be related to someone's education or their housing or their health, their nutrition.
Would that translate into a jargony term, a chilling effect? In other words, that people may not access benefits that they're otherwise entitled to. And so we asked the American people, if you weren't sure what was going to happen with your data, how would that affect your signing up for benefits? And nearly half said that they would not sign up for benefits.
Chapter 5: What implications does mistrust in government data practices have?
This is not just a hypothetical or theoretical risk. This actually will result in a society that is less educated, less healthy, more unhoused. These are real-life implications of that. And then the other one that we've heard a lot about in the past year is not all recipients of this information are the same.
There's been a ton of coverage and discussion about how personal data can be used to support immigration enforcement, for example. And that is something that the majority of the American people are concerned about. So they are worried about their personal data being shared with law enforcement or the Department of Homeland Security.
What are the implications of this kind of mistrust in federal data practices?
I think we've all heard your trust in government right now is at its lowest it's been in decades. And so I think this is, you know, giving the American people another reason to not trust their elected officials and their public servants.
Chapter 6: How can the government regain trust in its data practices?
I will say something else that came through clearly in our research is that the American people want government to be held accountable. And again, that is consistent across political affiliation, across race and ethnicity, across a variety of different groups of people who these days feel like they don't agree on anything.
But one thing that they agreed on is that Congress should be conducting oversight and they should be holding agencies accountable when they are potentially misusing people's data. And so I think even though there certainly was a feeling of helplessness that came through in our survey, I think even stronger than that was a call for action.
That was Elizabeth Laird at the Center for Democracy and Technology. Daniel Shin produced this episode. I'm Megan McCarty Carino, and that's Marketplace Tech. This is APM.