Data Protection and Information Privacy

The impact of cultural factors on perceptions of and attitudes toward privacy is often neglected in privacy studies. Yet, understanding these factors is crucial in our globalized world, where businesses, governments and researchers rely on data from different cultures. This book makes a contribution to closing this gap. It presents and discusses findings from a large, comparative cross-cultural study on professionals’ views of key data protection and information privacy issues, such as data autonomy, the data power of companies and governments, and the impact of data protection and information privacy regulations on companies, consumers, and the state. The book facilitates a better understanding of attitudes toward data protection and privacy across cultures by highlighting areas in which professionals around the world are (dis-)satisfied with data protection regulations and practices, and showing how culture-specific factors can help to explain differences in this area.