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People in Netherlands Most Protective of Personal Data Privacy Online in EU, Poll Shows

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - People in the Netherlands, Finland and Denmark are the most protective of their personal data while surfing the internet among the entire European Union, while the least protective people live in Bulgaria, Romania and Greece, a Eurostat poll found on Thursday.
Sputnik

The poll's release marks International Data Protection Day, celebrated on 28 January.

The poll found that 73 percent of the Dutch refuse to allow the use of their personal data for advertising on the internet, followed by 70 percent of people in Finland, 63 percent in each of Denmark and Germany and 62 percent in Spain.

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The share of people opposed to the use of their personal data online was the least in Bulgaria (10 percent), Romania (20 percent), Greece (29 percent), Slovakia (30 percent) and Latvia (32 percent), according to the findings.

The European Union's average was estimated at 50 percent.

Among other findings was that 46 percent of EU users restrict or refuse access to their geographic location, 40 percent limit access to their social media accounts, 40 percent actually read privacy policy statements before providing their personal data and 33 percent check to make sure that the website requesting personal data is secure.

The survey was conducted remotely among people aged from 16-74 in the three months prior to the publication.

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