PRIVACY LITERACY AND THE PROTECTION OF PERSONAL DATA IN THE MIND OF LAW STUDENTS

Abstract

With the advent of the fourth industrial revolution, the issue of data protection has become more important than  ever before. There is no doubt that data, and especially  personal data, has significant commercial value. Data  protection also raises major issues for the legal profession. With the increasing significance of data protection, the  question arises as to whether law students have sufficient  knowledge of privacy literacy. Based on the results of  empirical research, this study set out to examine the  attitudes of current law students to personal data and to  determine how seriously they take data protection, particularly how it works in practice, when, for example,  they use various kinds of social network sites, as well as to  gauge their knowledge of data protection guarantees. The  aim of this study is to provide a brief insight, based on the  results of in-depth interviews, into the reasons behind the  specific privacy literacy gaps revealed by the findings of the  preliminary quantitative research. It is anticipated, it should  be emphasised, that law students will prove not to  be fully aware of how much personal data they may provide  about themselves on social network sites.  Moreover, identifying personal data through practical  examples causes difficulties for law students, such as cookie ID or data on their health. Consequently, the privacy  literacy of law students needs to be improved.