Internet Stakeholders Doubt Creation of Acceptable Privacy Standards in Next Decade, Says Pew Survey

Fifty-five percent of Internet stakeholders said “no” when asked whether an “accepted privacy-rights regime and infrastructure” would be created in the next decade, said a Pew Research Internet Project survey released Thursday. But 45 percent of respondents said “yes” when asked if such a regime would exist by 2025, it said. The survey polled 2,511 Internet industry officials, researchers and analysts, some of whom were anonymous. Elon University also participated in the survey, which was done from Nov. 25, 2013, to Jan. 13, 2014. “I do not think 10 years is long enough for policy makers to change the way they make policy to keep up with the rate of technological progress,” John Wilbanks, Sage Bionetworks chief commons officer, told Pew. “We have never had ubiquitous surveillance before, much less a form of ubiquitous surveillance that emerges primarily from voluntary (if market-obscured) choices,” he said: “Predicting how it shakes out is just fantasy.”