According to Kaspersky’s Privacy Checker website, Google’s security guidelines also attracted the most requests in apps this year.
Eighty-five percent of users are most interested in setting privacy settings for services on androidaccording to data collected by Kaspersky’s Privacy Checker website.
Kaspersky said the information comes from anonymized data voluntarily provided by users of the website. In terms of apps, most requests this year were related to Google’s security guidelines (22%), according to Kaspersky.
Concerns about digital privacy are widespread. A “Digital Privacy and Security Surveyconducted by the Calyx Institute in 2021, it was found that 80% of respondents were concerned about the topic of digital privacy in the past year and 59% said they are more aware of how their data is treated than a year ago.
The Privacy Checker data also revealed that there were many more requests for privacy guidelines for services on the Android platform compared to other operating systems. Windows and iOS got the same result (6%) and the lowest number of requests were registered for Mac (3%).
Android requests were the most popular
Numbers for the most viewed pages on the Privacy Checker website also confirm that Android requests were the most popular, with the top five being instructions for this operating system. The highest number of users were interested in medium-level privacy settings for Google (17%).
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The next three positions all had the same number (9%) and these were average privacy rules for Chrome and WhatsApp, as well as the strictest guidelines for Google. The fifth were medium-level security instructions for Facebook (7%).
For service settings, users were most interested in guidelines for Google (22%), WhatsApp (14%), privacy rules for operating systems, and Chrome (12%). Instagram (11%) rounded out the top five, slightly outperforming Facebook this year in terms of requests by 10%.
In addition, on the Privacy Checker platform, users can choose from three different security levels: tight, medium and relaxed. This year, for all services, the majority of requests were for medium-level contracts. The exception was for the Safari browser, where users were more interested in the strictest privacy rules, 54% versus 45%, for medium.
“Visitor statistics from the privacy checker show which aspects of online privacy and security attracted the most attention from users,” Sergey Malenkovich, Kaspersky’s head of social media, said in a statement. “This year, Instagram topped both Facebook and TikTok, which is surprising given the amount of criticism TikTok continues to receive from the public and authorities.”
Malenkovich theorized that “this could be related to the updates to the ‘Terms of Service’ made over the course of this year, and that users want to make sure that their personal information is safe no matter what.”
TO SEE: Mobile Device Security Policy (Tech Republic Premium)
How to protect your privacy across platforms
Kaspersky has also prepared a short checklist to help users protect their personal information across all platforms:
- Security Solutions often have a private browsing feature, which can help prevent internet tracking.
- View permissions for mobile apps and browser extensions. It is better not to install browser extensions unless you really need them. Carefully check the permissions you give.
- Public storage is not the best place to store private data, such as passport scans or a list of passwords. A better option would be to keep them in an encrypted archive.
- It is good practice to update operating systems and important apps as updates become available. Many security issues can be resolved by installing updated software versions.
- Try to avoid posting information that reveals too much, such as your address, personal phone number, email address, and other private information. Before sharing anything, consider whether there could be unintended consequences and do not share anything that could compromise your or anyone else’s privacy.
To alleviate privacy concerns, users can limit the amount of personal data available online with services such as Kaspersky Privacy Checker. Kaspersky said its findings were obtained from anonymous data related to visits to the Kaspersky Privacy Checker website between January 2022 and July 2022. This included analyzing which services and platforms users most frequently asked for security settings.
