Some 48% of the online population of the UK aged between 16-64 worry about the internet’s impact on their privacy, although the UK only ranks 24 out of 32 in a study that ranks how concerned countries are towards privacy.

Country % of people concerned web is eroding personal privacy Number of people (millions) South Korea 68% 21.21 China 66% 303.44 Taiwan 61% 8.39 Malaysia 60% 8.32 Hong Kong 60% 2.42 Spain 60% 13.56 Mexico 59% 19.15 Philippines 58% 18.47 Singapore 58% 2.06 Turkey 56% 11.14 Saudi Arabia 56% 6.75 Canada 55% 12.04 US 55% 97.41 Argentina 53% 8.75 Ireland 53% 0.92 India 53% 69.25 UAE 52% 3.34 South Africa 52% 8.51 Australia 51% 6.67 Brazil 50% 38.08 Russia 50% 29.71 Poland 49% 8.10 France 48% 16.60 UK 48% 17.51 Germany 48% 21.28 Vietnam 48% 13.85 Italy 44% 9.52 Thailand 43% 6.30 Indonesia 42% 24.50 Japan 39% 24.12 Netherlands 37% 3.87 Sweden 17% 0.93

The study of 170,000 individuals, which was timed to coincide with today’s (28 February) Data Privacy Day, found that globally 56% of people are concerned the internet is eroding their privacy, with the South Koreans and Chinese being most worried.

Period % of people concerned web is eroding personal privacy Number of people (millions) Sep 2010 48% 465.08 Feb 2011 48% 495.92 Jun 2011 49% 549.09 Nov 2011 50% 591.45 Q2 2012 49% 634.24 Q4 2012 55% 753.14 Q1 2013 57% 786.20 Q2 2013 56% 798.72 Q3 2013 56% 816.11 Q4 2013 56% 836.16

GlobalWebIndex’s research claims some 1.4 million of the UK ’s 16-64 online population use a virtual private network (VPN) to keep anonymity while browsing, while 960,000 of respondents also claim to use a VPN to hide their browsing activity from the government.

The research additionally found that there are 1.95 million Snapchat users in the UK , which equates to 12% of the UK ’s online population aged between 16-64.

The UK has the third highest percentage of its population on Snapchat and trails only Ireland and the US , which both have 13% of the country using it.

Services including Snapchat have been accused of not doing enough to secure privacy of their users in the past.

Snapchat fell victim to a hack that led to 4.6 million usernames and number being published by a site called SnapchatDB.info.