With more of our personal information on the Internet now more than ever, Internet privacy has become a growing concern. While some governments around the world recognize this and have begun to pass legislation aimed at protecting their citizens’ data, other governments have not and continue to have a more authoritarian approach towards their citizens online activities, with some that even have online surveillance systems in place.
Which areas of the world are the safest for your online data? The Stevens Institute of Technology ranked 70 countries around the world on their Internet privacy, the results have been mapped out in the visual below.
The countries were ranked from best Internet privacy to worst using data from the annual Freedom on the Net report, specifically the “Violations of User Rights” category. This portion of the report included eight different factors that focused on the legislation in place and the rights of Internet users in each country. The most points a country could earn across the eight factors is 40 points, and Estonia took the top spot with 37 points. Their Internet privacy score has remained unchanged since 2016 when the EU implemented the General Data Protection Regulation for its participating nations. With having to abide by the toughest Internet privacy and security law in the world, it comes as no surprise that many of the countries with the best Internet privacy laws are in the EU. Can you guess which authoritarian country came in dead last and earned zero points for it’s strict Internet privacy laws?
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