{"id":13488,"date":"2015-03-27T07:00:06","date_gmt":"2015-03-27T12:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/how-citizens-and-investigative-journalists-handle-privacy-protection\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:19:52","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:19:52","slug":"how-citizens-and-investigative-journalists-handle-privacy-protection","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2015\/03\/27\/how-citizens-and-investigative-journalists-handle-privacy-protection\/","title":{"rendered":"How citizens and investigative journalists handle privacy protection"},"content":{"rendered":"

The American public has had a muted response when it comes to concerns about possible government monitoring of their digital behavior, and many have not yet adopted \u2013 or are even aware of \u2013 many of the tools available to protect their online privacy and security, according to a new Pew Research Center study<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

But it is a different story for a group like investigative journalists, whose work makes them potential targets for monitoring.<\/p>\n\n

\"Some<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

In our survey of U.S. members of Investigative Reporters & Editors<\/a>, most of the investigative journalists assume that they are being monitored because of the nature of their work: 64% believe that the government probably collected their communications data.<\/p>\n\n

And many have long since adopted various privacy and security measures. Most notably, 76% of the investigative journalists said they had been using a variety of passwords for more than a year, and 58% had been using enhanced privacy settings on social networking sites.<\/p>\n\n

In addition, 59% of IRE reporters (a subset of the larger group of journalists) say that, to protect sources\u2019 anonymity, they meet in person instead of using electronic communication \u2013 a decidedly non-digital form of security. Nearly half (48%) have done so for more than a year.<\/p>\n\n

For this group of investigative journalists, there is far more concern about decreasing resources in newsrooms \u2013 the top-ranked issue they feel the profession is facing today.<\/p>\n\n

In a different set of questions asked of the general public, 52% said they were very or somewhat concerned<\/a> about government surveillance of Americans\u2019 \u00a0data and electronic communications, but a significant share \u2013 46% \u2013 expressed little or no concern.<\/p>\n\n

For those Americans who had heard about the surveillance programs, a minority had made any of the behavior changes included in the survey. Fewer than on-in-five who had heard about the programs reported changing privacy settings on social media (17%), avoiding using certain apps (15%), using social media less often (15%), speaking more in person than online or over the phone (14%), uninstalling certain apps (13%), avoiding the use of certain terms in online communication (13%), avoiding the use of some terms in search engine queries (11%), deleting social media accounts (8%), or making more phone calls instead of communicating online (8%). Overall, one-in-three (34%) who had heard about the programs say they have changed at least one of these behaviors since learning about the government monitoring programs.<\/p>\n\n

[there\u2019s a]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The public’s muted response on possible government monitoring of their online behavior differs from that of investigative journalists, whose work makes them potential targets for monitoring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":331,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sub_headline":null,"sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"relatedPosts":[],"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0},"categories":[275,334,368,398,332,279,110],"bylines":[961],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[526,527],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-13488","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","category-digital-news-landscape-2","category-digital-news-landscape-1","category-journalists-2","category-journalists-1","category-media-industry","category-online-privacy-security","category-privacy-rights","bylines-michael-barthel","formats-short-read","regions-countries-united-states","research-teams-internet","research-teams-journalism"],"label":"Short 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