Flash Eurobarometer 147 (Data Protection)

Attitudes of companies towards data protection issues. Measures of data protection.<br>Topics: assessment of the level of protection of the national Data Protection Law for citizens as sufficient; attitude towards selected statements on the requirements of the data protection law: necessary, too strict, only necessary for certain sectors of activity; attitude towards the following statements: sufficient harmonization of the member states’ data protection laws to consider that personal data can be moved freely within the EU, data protection law in the own country is applied more strictly than in other member states; suitability of existing legislation on data protection with regard to the increasing exchange of personal data; use of Privacy Enhancing Technologies in the company; transfer of personal data to countries outside the European Economic Area; type of transferred data; reasons why provisions and requirements of the national data protection law are not respected by some controllers; availability of the following information to the data subject: identity of data controller or its representative, address of the person responsible for data protection matters within the organisation, purpose of the collected data, recipients of the data, (non-)obligation of replying and possible consequences, existence of the right to access and the right to rectify the data concerning the data subjects, possible transfer of data to non-EU countries, indication whether recipient country provides adequate level of data protection; attitude towards the following issues: information of data subjects on the purpose of processing before the collection of personal data, deletion of data if no longer needed, lax compliance of companies with data protection law as there are only few complaints, responding to requests from individuals wanting to access their data involves important effort for companies; approximate number of requests for access to personal data received in 2002; complaints from people whose personal data are being currently processed; preferred actions to improve the implementation of the legal framework on data protection; attitude towards intrusions by authorities in personal databases in order to fight international terrorism.

Demography: position of respondent at the company; information about the company (limited to activities in the own country): number of employees, independent or part of national or international group; company sector.

Additionally coded was: interview ID; interviewer ID; language of the interview; duration of the interview; SIC-Code; weighting factor.