Acceptable uses of data or personal info in the U.S. 2019

Online users in the United States are wary about uses of data or their personal information. During a June 2019 survey, a total of 49 percent of respondents stated that it was not acceptable for smart speaker makers to share users' audio recordings with law enforcement to help with criminal investigations. In summer 2019, Apple's Siri assistant, the Google Assistant and Amazon's Alexa devices were embroiled in a privacy scandal regarding the unauthorized recordings of private user conversations. The companies stated that this was done to improve the product, and have since either scrapped or made the process opt-in.

Acceptable uses of data or personal information according to online adults in the United States as of June 2019

Characteristic	Not acceptable	Acceptable	Not sure
Poorly performing schools sharing student data with a nonprofit seeking to improve educational outcomes	27%	49%	24%
The government collecting data about all Americans to assess potential terrorist threats	31%	49%	19%
DNA testing companies sharing customers' genetic data with law enforcement to solve crimes	33%	48%	18%
Fitness tracking app makers sharing user data with medical researchers*	35%	41%	22%
Social media companies monitoring users' posts for signs of depression to identify users at risk**	45%	27%	27%
Smart speaker makers sharing users' audio recordings with law enforcement to help with criminal investigations	49%	25%	25%

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Release date

November 2019

More information

Region

United States

Survey time period

June 3 to 17, 2019

Number of respondents

4,272 respondents

Age group

18 years and older

Special properties

excluding those who did not give an answer

Method of interview

Online panel

Supplementary notes

*...to better understand the link between exercise and heart disease
**...for self-harm and connect them to counselors

Values may not add up to 100 percent due to rounding.

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