85pc of Android users concerned with privacy on platform

85 percent of all android users are most interested in finding out how to set up privacy settings for services.

This is according to cyber security firm Kaspersky which used findings from a report compiled by the Calyx Institute in 2021 dubbed ‘the digital privacy and security survey.

According to the data, 80 percent of respondents were worried about the topic of digital privacy over the last year and 59 percent said they felt more aware of how their data is treated than a year ago.

Kaspersky’s findings were obtained based on anonymous data relating to visits to the Kaspersky Privacy Checker website between January 2022 and July 2022.

This included analyzing which services and platforms users most often requested security setting instructions for.

Based on this data, there were far more requests for privacy guidelines for services on Android platform in comparison with other OSs.

Windows and iOS got the same result (6pc), and the lowest number of requests were recorded for Mac (3pc).

Figures for the most viewed pages on the Privacy Checker website also confirm greatest popularity for Android requests – the top five were all related to instructions for this OS.

The highest number of users were interested in medium level privacy settings for Google (17pc).

The next three positions all recorded the same number (9pc), and these were medium privacy rules for Chrome and WhatsApp, as well as the strictest guidelines for Google.

The fifth was medium level security instructions for Facebook (7 percent).

For services settings, users were most often interested in guidelines for Google (22pc), WhatsApp (14pc), operating systems privacy rules and Chrome (12pc each).

Instagram (11pc) closed the top five, slightly outperforming Facebook this year in terms of the number of requests – its share was 10 percent.

Additionally, on the Privacy Checker platform, users can choose from three different levels of security settings – tight, medium, and relaxed.

This year for all services, the largest share of requests was related to medium level instructions.

The exception was for the Safari browser, where users were more interested in the strictest privacy rules – 54 percent versus 45 percent for medium.

“Visitor statistics from the Privacy Checker show which aspects of online privacy and security most grabbed users’ attention. This year Instagram topped both Facebook and TikTok, which is surprising given the amount of scrutiny TikTok still receives from the public and authorities,” said Sergey Malenkovich, Head of Social Media at Kaspersky.

“It appears this may relate to the ‘terms of service’ updates made during this year, and users wanting to make sure that their personal data is safe no matter what.”

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