Nine of 10 American voters are concerned about advertisers using personal data to market to children, and an overwhelming bipartisan consensus has emerged among those voters in support of proposals geared toward safeguarding children’s personal information.
So says Common Sense Media, a San Francisco-based nonprofit, in a new survey report. The organization is heading an initiative to institutionalize privacy protections before the digital devices, software, and apps now flooding schools become ubiquitous.
In its survey, Common Sense found broad support for action across the country’s bitter partisan divide: 91 percent of respondents support stronger parental-consent requirements related to the sharing of sensitive student data, and 89 percent supported tighter security standards for cloud storage, with no meaningful differences between Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.
The findings are the result of telephone interviews with 800 registered voters (including 227 parents) conducted Jan. 6-9 by the Benenson Strategy Group. There is a 3.5 percentage-point margin of error for all respondents, and a 9.5 percentage-point error margin for parents alone.