Americans largely concerned but unsure about extent of government surveillance: Study

Roughly three in four Americans assume at least some of their online or cellphone activity is being tracked by the government, a new Pew Research Center report showed Friday.

Nationwide polling conducted by Pew found that 77% of adults surveyed said they suspect they are subjected to some sort of related surveillance, according to the report.

“As far as you know, how much of what you do online or on your cellphone is being tracked by the government?” respondents were asked. Twenty-four percent answered “all or almost all of it,” 23% answered “most of it,” 30% answered “some” of it,” 14% answered “very little of it” and 9% answered “none,” Pew reported.

Answers given to other questions asked by pollsters indicate most Americans are concerned but unsure about how their personal data is harnessed by the government.

Sixty-four percent of adults surveyed said they are very or somewhat concerned about the government uses the data it collects about them, while 36% said they are not too concerned or not concerned at all.

Asked in a separate question to quantify how much they understand about what the government is doing with their data, 53% of respondents answered “very little” and 25% answered “nothing,” Pew reported.

“When it comes to privacy in the digital age, many Americans are concerned, confused and not fully convinced that the current systems of tracking and monitoring them bring more benefits than risk,” said Lee Rainie, Pew Research Center’s director of research for internet and technology.

The polling was conducted in June from a sample of 4,272 adults. The questions were posed to smaller subsets of that group, and their responses have a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.