How People Experience Privacy and Surveillance in Digital Life — 2025 Data
This page summarises findings from the Human Clarity Institute’s Privacy & Surveillance in Digital Life 2025 dataset, based on 271 valid responses across six English-speaking countries. The research examines how adults experience digital monitoring, perceived loss of control over personal data, normalisation of tracking, privacy-related behaviour change, and whether AI systems are seen as increasing surveillance risk. The strongest topline signals are structural: 84% perceive a significant power imbalance in personal data collection, and 83% say they have little control over what happens to their data once it is collected.
View the Privacy & Surveillance in Digital Life 2025 Dataset
What the data shows
The clearest signals in this dataset point to perceived structural disadvantage, normalised tracking, and behavioural adaptation. Most respondents say institutions hold disproportionate power over personal data, most say they lose control once data are collected, and large majorities describe tracking and privacy loss as part of modern digital life. At the same time, the data do not show passive acceptance alone: many respondents also report self-censorship, platform avoidance, and reduced freedom when they believe behaviour may be recorded.
Perceive a significant power imbalance over personal data
Base: valid responses to the data power imbalance item. Only 4% disagree (1–3), showing broad perception that institutions collecting data hold disproportionate power.
Feel they have little control once personal data are collected
Base: valid responses to the low control after collection item. Only 8% disagree (1–3), suggesting perceived loss of control is a dominant signal in the dataset.
Say online tracking now feels like a normal part of modern life
Base: valid responses to the tracking normalisation item. Just 10% disagree (1–3), indicating that surveillance is widely perceived as normalised rather than exceptional.
Say modern surveillance systems do not respect human dignity
Base: valid responses to the surveillance and human dignity item. This is one of the strongest signals in the dataset and points to a clear moral discomfort with surveillance conditions.
Believe loss of privacy online is now unavoidable
Base: valid responses to the unavoidable privacy loss item. This reinforces the broader pattern that privacy erosion is often experienced as a background condition of digital life.
Say AI systems increase privacy and surveillance-related risk
Base: valid responses to the AI surveillance risk item. Only 10% disagree (1–3), showing that AI is widely seen as a risk amplifier rather than a neutral layer.
Feel their online activity is constantly monitored or tracked
Base: valid responses to the monitored or tracked item. 17% disagree (1–3), indicating that perceived monitoring is a mainstream lived experience in this sample.
Say surveillance concerns make them less willing to express opinions online
Base: valid responses to the self-censorship item. 37% disagree (1–3), showing that behavioural adaptation is present but less universal than structural concern.
Overall, the dataset points to a pattern where privacy loss is perceived as structurally unequal, widely normalised, and psychologically consequential. The strongest signals are not about a single platform or technology, but about power, control, and whether people believe they can still act freely once surveillance becomes embedded in everyday digital life.
By the numbers (from HCI data)
Use AI-powered tools at least occasionally
Base: valid responses to the AI use frequency item. 22% report everyday AI use.
Spend 5+ hours online per day
Base: valid responses to the daily time online item. This includes 28% who estimate 9+ hours online per day.
Feel less free when they know behaviour may be recorded
Base: valid responses to the recorded behaviour freedom item. This is one of the clearest signs that surveillance is experienced not only cognitively, but behaviourally.
Avoid certain platforms or tools because of privacy concerns
Base: valid responses to the platform avoidance item. 38% disagree (1–3), showing that active avoidance is common but not universal.
Feel anxious knowing digital behaviour can be monitored
Base: valid responses to the monitoring anxiety item. 37% disagree (1–3), suggesting emotional response is meaningful but more mixed than structural judgement.
Report becoming more concerned about privacy since using AI tools
Base: valid responses to the perceived change since AI use item. 52% report no noticeable change.
Patterns observed in the data
Structural disadvantage is the dominant pattern
The strongest signals in the dataset are concentrated around power imbalance and loss of control after data collection. This suggests the privacy issue is not experienced mainly as a one-off technical concern, but as a structural condition in which individuals feel they have limited leverage once data collection begins.
Surveillance is both widespread and normalised
Large majorities say they feel monitored online and that tracking now feels like a normal part of modern life. The dataset therefore points to a surveillance environment that is not only perceived as present, but increasingly accepted as part of the baseline digital condition.
Privacy loss is experienced as moral as well as practical
The human dignity item is one of the strongest in the dataset. That matters because it shows privacy concern is not confined to convenience, annoyance, or consumer preference; for many respondents it is tied to a broader judgement about how people ought to be treated in digital systems.
Concern translates into behavioural adjustment
The page does not only capture abstract attitudes. Many respondents say they self-censor, avoid certain platforms, or feel less free when they believe behaviour may be recorded. This suggests that perceived surveillance shapes behaviour, not just opinion.
AI is viewed as a risk amplifier
Most respondents say AI systems increase surveillance-related risk, and nearly half report becoming more concerned about privacy since they started using AI-powered tools. The data therefore point to AI as a catalyst that intensifies existing privacy unease rather than resolving it.
What these findings suggest
This dataset suggests that privacy and surveillance concerns in digital life are shaped most strongly by power, control, and normalisation. For many respondents, the issue is not simply whether data are collected, but whether meaningful agency remains once collection and inference systems are already in motion.
At the same time, the data show that surveillance is not experienced as an abstract background concept alone. For a substantial share of respondents, it is associated with anxiety, platform avoidance, reduced willingness to speak openly, and a sense of diminished freedom when behaviour may be recorded. That makes privacy a lived behavioural issue, not only a policy issue.
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Values vs Noise explores how digital distraction and busyness can obscure purpose — and how reconnecting with values helps restore direction and clarity.
Methodology
This dataset forms part of the Human Clarity Institute’s Human–AI Experience research programme, examining how digitally active adults experience privacy, surveillance, data control, monitoring, and behavioural adjustment in digital and AI-enabled environments. The study uses a cross-sectional online survey design and is intended to describe observed patterns within the sample rather than make causal claims.
Data were collected on 19/12/2025 via Prolific as part of HCI’s Human–AI Experience research programme. Participants provided explicit consent for anonymised open publication.
Sampling & quality controls
- Final n: 271
- Countries: Australia, United Kingdom, United States, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand
- Eligibility: Adults (18+), fluent in English
- Recruitment platform: Prolific
- Anonymisation: direct identifiers and timestamp fields removed before publication
The resulting dataset should be interpreted as a non-probability convenience sample and is not intended to represent national populations. Its primary value lies in documenting descriptive patterns in digitally active adults across multiple English-speaking countries using a consistent HCI measurement framework.
The cleaned dataset, variable dictionary, and reuse terms are publicly available through the HCI dataset repository: Privacy & Surveillance in Digital Life 2025 Dataset →
Data integrity
All percentages reported on this page are calculated from valid responses in the cleaned dataset. Percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number for readability. Unless otherwise stated, summary percentages refer to the stated grouping for that item, such as 5–7, 1–3, or a named response category.
Item bases vary slightly across the page due to missing responses. Where wording refers to disagreement, low-score groupings, comparison categories, or named response ranges such as 5+ hours or everyday use, that grouping is stated explicitly in the text.
This dataset is exploratory and descriptive in nature. It does not support causal inference, and results should be interpreted as observed patterns within the survey sample rather than population estimates.
This dataset is released as open research to support transparent analysis of privacy, surveillance, behavioural adaptation, and agency in the context of digital and AI-enabled life.