More than three quarters of EU internet users took steps in 2025 to control access to their personal data online, up from 2023.
Some 76.9% of people in the EU who had used the internet in the three months before the survey said they managed access to their personal data, an increase of 3.7 percentage points from 73.2% in 2023, Eurostat reported on Wednesday.
The most common action was refusing permission for personal data to be used for advertising, chosen by 58.8% of users.
Restricting or refusing access to geographical location data was reported by 56.2%, while 46.0% limited access to social media profiles or shared online storage.
Checking that a website was secure before providing personal data was reported by 39.0% of users, up 4.2 percentage points from 2023, while 37.6% said they read privacy policy statements before sharing personal data, up 1.7 points.
Finland recorded the highest share
Finland had the highest share of internet users taking protective measures, at 92.6%, followed by the Netherlands at 91.2% and Czechia at 90.3%, according to Eurostat.
The lowest shares were recorded in Romania at 56.0%, Slovenia at 57.4% and Bulgaria at 62.0%.
The data were published to mark Data Protection Day on 28 January.
