Transatlantic Privacy Perceptions (TAPP), Wave 6 (Spring 2025)

TAPP is an interdisciplinary research project conducted at the Universities of Maryland (UMD) and Munich (LMU). The privacy landscape is shaped by diverse actors from academia, policy, law, technology, journalism, and civil society, making it challenging to unify perspectives across sectors, regions, and cultural contexts. The Transatlantic Privacy Perceptions (TAPP) Panel addresses this by surveying influential privacy experts across jurisdictions with differing regulations. This survey captures stakeholders´ attitudes toward digital privacy, focusing on current and future challenges in privacy policies and practices. Wave 6 examines the recent trends in data governance, data flows, and policy influence across organizations. It explores changes in data protection and sharing practices, both nationally and internationally, as well as the impact of policy changes on access to government and proprietary data. The survey assesses respondents´ influence on data and AI policy development at organizational and national levels. Additionally, it evaluates concerns about data misuse by adversaries and perceptions of the impact of data flow restrictions on work, the economy, and scientific research. The findings will provide insights into evolving data governance challenges and policy responses. During the survey period from 05 February 2025 to 05 March 2025 privacy experts who deal with privacy in the United States and/or Europe were interviewed in online interviews (CAWI). Respondents were selected through a deliberate selection process based on their visibility, recognizability and influence in the field. Professional interest in privacy-related topics or both a personal and a professional interest in privacy-related topics; privacy as part of work; focus of work in general ( data governance, AI governance, data privacy, other); organization changed data protection in the last 1-2 years; drivers of the change (open answer); organization has changed the way how it shares data with other organizations; organization has changed the way how it shares data with other organizations nationally/ internationally (increased sharing vs. decreased sharing, no change); in the last 1-2 years policy changes in the US/ the EU/ the country have made accessing government data / proprietary data easier, harder, or stayed the same; personal influence in the development of data policies at the organizational level, and at the national policy level; personal influence in the development of AI policies at the organizational level, and at the national policy level; amount of concerns that adversaries or bad actors could use data to manipulate the general public; concerns about being manipulated oneself; positive or negative impact of state or national policies that restrict data flows on respondent’s work, on the national economy as a whole, and on science; years of experience on privacy issues; respondent performs privacy-related activities as part of his paid job vs. as a volunteer or activist; sector for privacy work (academia, government, journalism, law, non-profit/NGO/ Think Tank, Tech industry, non-Tech industry, volunteer/ activist); region of expertise: policy context the respondent is most familiar with when it comes to privacy issues (United States, Europe, Latin America, other). Additionally coded: Respondent ID, response ID, wave; returning respondent (individuals who have participated in at least one wave of TAPP); response status; willingness to participate in future waves of the TAPP Panel; country of expertise.