April 25, 2006 (Computerworld) Perhaps you were chosen for additional airport screening while rushing to catch a flight. Or you noticed a video camera watching your every move the last time you entered a bank, shopping mall or department store. Responses vary when people are confronted with actions aimed at improving security or service, which may also affect their privacy. We recently conducted a survey seeking opinions about several different surveillance methods:
Overall, our findings suggest that Americans have mixed feelings about being watched and tracked. Of most concern:
Practices of least concern:
A total of 889 people across all regions of the U.S. participated in our survey, which represents an 11% response rate. The margin of error is 2%.
The chart below shows the five most negatively viewed surveillance methods in our survey. Each bar reflects the percentage of respondents who stated that this method or mode of surveillance is never acceptable to them.
Percentage of Respondents Who Believe that this Form of Surveillance is Never Acceptable 
The most negatively viewed surveillance method concerns implanting an electronic chip to track identity. Also, more than half of respondents perceive spyware, the U.S. government's use of wiretaps and the widespread deployment of RFID tags that could track people as unacceptable modes of surveillance.
In general, government-initiated surveillance is viewed more negatively than that conducted by businesses. In addition, surveillance methods that rely on emerging technologies such as implantable chips, spyware and RFID tags are perceived as more invasive than lower-tech surveillance methods such as video cameras or one-way mirrors.
Our findings also suggest that gender and other demographic variables may influence someone's views about surveillance methods. For instance, women in our study appear to hold more negative perceptions about surveillance than men. Accordingly, 50% of women tended to have negative impressions across all survey scenarios as compared to 44% of men.
In addition, people with advanced educational degrees tend to hold more negative perceptions about surveillance methods. Both younger (18 to 25 years) and older respondents (over 65 years) appear hold more negative perceptions about surveillance than individuals in the ages between those two groups.
What factors do respondents consider important to their opinions about surveillance? We asked people to rate four:
While surveillance has become a way of life for many Americans in the post-9/11 world, many of us still hold negative feelings or concerns about certain methods. Our findings suggest that it is important for government and business organizations to understand the public's perceptions before deploying new security methods and technologies.
Larry Ponemon is chairman of Ponemon Institute LLC, a think tank dedicated to ethical information management practices and research. Ponemon is an adjunct professor of ethics and privacy at Carnegie Mellon University's CIO Institute and is a CyLab faculty member. For questions about the study, contact research@ponemon.org.