Challenging assumptions about the relationship between awareness of and attitudes to data uses amongst the UK public

Abstract

This article advances understanding of the relationship between (a) people’s awareness of and (b) their attitudes toward the ways in which data about them is collected, analyzed, shared, and used. It draws on an online survey of 2000 adults in the UK, which found that people with greater awareness of data uses hold more negative attitudes toward them. This finding is important because it challenges the deficit model which underlies initiatives that seek to improve the public’s attitudes toward and trust in institutional data uses through improved transparency or better data literacy.