Privacy and Surveillance in Digital Life 2025 (Dataset, n=271)

This dataset is part of the Human Clarity Institute’s AI–Human Experience 2025 data series. It examines how digitally active adults experience privacy erosion and surveillance in modern digital and AI-enabled environments, including perceived monitoring and tracking, behavioural self-regulation, power imbalance in data collection, and the emotional and autonomy-related impacts of surveillance.The dataset includes:• validated 1–7 Likert-scale items• perceived surveillance intensity, privacy understanding, and loss of control over personal data• behavioural indicators such as self-censorship, platform avoidance, and behaviour modification due to surveillance concerns• multi-select variables stored as canonical semicolon-delimited snake_case tokens• open-text reflections with minimal safe cleaning (trim + newline removal only)• demographic variables across six English-speaking countries• digital life exposure (daily hours online) and AI-tool usage frequencyData were collected on 19 December 2025 via Prolific from adults in the UK, US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Ireland.All data were cleaned, anonymised, and processed under the Human Clarity Institute’s machine-readable dataset protocol, which includes:• canonical snake_case variable naming• validated numeric ranges• standardised multi-select formats• minimal safe text cleaning• full alignment with the accompanying data dictionary• removal of Prolific IDs and timestamps• SHA-256 checksums for all filesThis dataset contributes to understanding how people cognitively and behaviourally adapt to perceived surveillance and data collection in AI-mediated digital life, supporting longitudinal tracking of autonomy, trust, behavioural self-regulation, and human–AI boundary negotiation as these dynamics evolve over time.