This dataset comprises self-reported questionnaire responses from 12,000 participants, capturing their conceptions, misconceptions, perceptions, and attitudes toward digital security. It also examines their familiarity with various digital security terms, experiences with cybercrime, and the protective measures participants employ to safeguard their online data. The survey, conducted in late 2021, includes responses from 1,000 participants in each of 12 countries: China, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sweden, the UK, and the USA.
, The dataset is provided in two files:
, 1. "SurveyResponses_DigitalSecurityAroundTheWorld.csv": This file contains the complete survey responses from all 12,000 participants., 2. "DataMap_DigitalSecurityAroundTheWorld.pdf": This document includes each question and response option from the full questionnaire. It also maps the survey questions to their corresponding column names in the dataset, facilitating data interpretation., When using any part of our dataset for your own research:, please make sure to cite the following publications:
, - Franziska Herbert, Steffen Becker, Leonie Schaewitz, Jonas Hielscher, Marvin Kowalewski, Angela Sasse, Yasemin Acar, and Markus Dürmuth. 2023. A World Full of Privacy and Security (Mis)conceptions? Findings of a Representative Survey in 12 Countries. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 582, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581410
, and - Franziska Herbert, Collins W. Munyendo, Jonas Hielscher, Steffen Becker, Yixin Zou. 2025. Digital Security Perceptions and Practices Around the World: A WEIRD vs. Non-WEIRD Comparison. In Proceedings of the 34th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 25). USENIX Association, Philadelphia, PA, USA. (in press)
