Abstract

Privacy is a sociocultural perception, depending on the dominant values of a society, sociocultural heritage, and contemporary technological developments. This article focuses on privacy perception among adolescents based on a European school survey (PRACTIS), and presents comparative results of an exploratory study conducted among over 1,428 adolescents in six countries. The results reveal that adolescents attribute high value to privacy and are prepared to actively oppose if an online corporation is challenging their personal interests. However, they tend to trade off privacy for other perceived benefits. Adolescents’ privacy perception and data protection are affected by cultural diversity, age, gender, and most of all their various social network sites activities and their attitudes toward importance of sharing and controlling personal information.