How EU Citizens Rate Their Digital Rights

A majority of EU citizens feels that digital rights where they live are well applied across five out of seven issues queried by the European Union's Eurobarometer. Freedom of expression and information online was the most positively viewed subject, with 60 percent of respondents from the 27 European Union countries saying rights and principles were applied very well or at least fairly well. Positive replies were in the range of 52 to 55 percent for access to safe and privacy-friendly technologies, freedom of choice online, access to a trustworthy and diverse digital environment as well as online privacy in general. Positive responses were therefore in the majority, if only by a slim margin.

On the topics control over one's own data and safe digital environments for children and young people, only 48 percent and 42 percent, respectively, said they saw digital rights handled well. The Eurobarometer survey also found that approximately three quarters of EU citizens think that digitization is making their lives easier. The countries where people agreed with this the most were Sweden and the Netherlands, followed by Slovakia, Cyprus and Denmark.

Almost 90 percent said that they wanted to make sure people received the right help in digital transformations and that research into strong and secure digital technologies should be increased. More than 90 percent said children and young adults urgently needed better protections from the negative effects of social media on mental health, from cyber-bullying and from age-inappropriate content.

Only 60 percent of respondents said that they were aware prior to the survey that all offline rights also applied online. 44 percent said the EU was able to protect their digital rights very or fairly well. Citizen of Malta, Ireland, Croatia and Luxembourg were the most satisfied.