Americans Claim Privacy Doesn’t Concern Them. Then They Cover Their Cameras.

Nearly half of Americans say they have “nothing to hide” online. But ask them to unlock their phones for a stranger, and that confidence disappears. This behavior tells a more complicated story.

In a survey of 1,517 adults, Incogni found that 58% of people who claim online privacy doesn’t concern them wouldn’t give a stranger unrestricted access to their phone for any amount of money. And 39% cover their device cameras.

To understand the gap between what people say about privacy and how they actually behave, Incogni’s researchers examined attitudes toward online privacy, the validity of the “nothing to hide” response, people’s willingness to trade personal data for money, and the boundaries people draw around access to their devices, messages, and location data.

Key Insights:

• 45% of respondents claim that online privacy doesn’t concern them because they have “nothing to hide.” The proportion rises to 57% among Gen Z respondents and falls to 26% among Baby Boomers.
• 58% of people who claim they have “nothing to hide” would nonetheless refuse to hand their unlocked phones to a stranger for any amount of money.
• People who claim to have “nothing to hide” are significantly more likely to snoop on others’ devices: 42% admit doing so, compared with 27% of those who acknowledge they have something to hide.
• 39% of the “nothing to hide” group cover their device cameras. Across all respondents, 26% use fake details (like masked email addresses, fake birth dates, and false names) when registering on websites. 
• 57% of respondents feel uncomfortable with strangers seeing messages on their screens in public, compared with 43% who feel uncomfortable with strangers overhearing their phone conversations.
• Snooping is common beyond public spaces: 34% admit to secretly looking at strangers’ screens in public, 35% have snooped through a partner’s phone without permission, and 25% have looked through a family member’s phone. 
• Nearly half (49%) of respondents claim they would refuse to share their private message history with any entity—even in exchange for three months’ salary.
• Only 8% are comfortable allowing government institutions continuous access to their precise location, while just 7% state the same regarding private businesses.

Who really believes they have “nothing to hide”?

The phrase “I have nothing to hide” often appears in debates about digital privacy, but Incogni’s survey shows that this belief is far from evenly distributed. 

Across the sample, 45% agreed that they have nothing to hide, so online privacy doesn’t really concern them, while 36% disagreed, and 19% remained neutral.

Age produced the clearest divide. A majority of Gen Z respondents (57%) and Millennials (53%) agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, compared with 39% of Gen X respondents and just 26% of Baby Boomers. Among Baby Boomers, 59% actively disagreed.

Incogni’s researchers also noted that income played a role: 52% of high-income respondents agreed that privacy doesn’t concern them, compared with 42% of average-income and 40% of low-income respondents.

But stated beliefs are only part of the story. When respondents were asked about actual privacy behaviors and trade-offs, many of those who claimed to have “nothing to hide” nonetheless drew clear boundaries around their personal information.

The less we have to hide, the more we snoop

One of the survey’s clearest contradictions appears when examining snooping behavior. Among respondents who stated they have “nothing to hide,” 42% admitted to secretly looking at other people’s phone or laptop screens in public, compared with just 27% of those who say they have something to hide. Overall, 34% of respondents admitted to secretly looking at other people’s screens in public. Gen Z respondents (49%) and Millennials (43%) were the most likely to snoop, compared with just 14% of Baby Boomers.

Respondents also draw different boundaries depending on how their conversations were exposed in public. 57% of respondents report feeling uncomfortable with strangers seeing their messages on their screens, compared with 43% who reported feeling uncomfortable with strangers overhearing spoken phone conversations.

This gap becomes even wider when privacy attitudes are taken into account: 70% of respondents who state they have “something to hide” report feeling uncomfortable with others overhearing their conversations, compared with just 26% of the “nothing to hide” group.

Snooping also extends beyond strangers. More than one in three respondents (35%) admitted to looking through a partner’s phone without permission, while 25% reported having snooped through a family member’s phone.

Yet attitudes toward this kind of access were surprisingly relaxed: 49% of respondents stated they were comfortable with a partner or close family member looking through their phone, with or without their knowledge.

“Nothing to hide”—but cameras still covered 

Saying privacy doesn’t matter does not necessarily mean behaving as though it doesn’t. Among respondents who claimed they have “nothing to hide,” 39% still physically covered their device cameras.

Across all respondents, 36% reported using tape, stickers, or sliding covers over their cameras. The practice is most common among Gen Z respondents (47%) and Millennials (43%), falling to 20% among Baby Boomers. 

More than one in four respondents (28%) deliberately obscure some personal information when creating online accounts, using tactics such as the inclusion of fake names, false dates of birth, and masked emails (e.g., Apple’s Hide My Email). Among Gen Z respondents, this rises to 38%, compared with just 12% of Baby Boomers, meaning Gen Z leads this trend.

Despite taking defensive actions, 65% of respondents reported not knowing how many websites they are registered on. For those who claimed to have “something to hide,” the lack of awareness rises to 75%.

How much is access to your phone worth?

For many respondents, privacy is worth paying for. Nearly two-thirds of respondents (65%) stated that they would pay more for a product if it was better for their privacy, while 33% claimed they have actually done so. That rises to 44% among high-income respondents, and 41% among those who say they have “nothing to hide.”

But the strongest privacy boundary appears when the trade-off becomes personal: unrestricted access to someone’s phone.

Asked how much money it would take to let a stranger look through their unlocked phones without restrictions, 60% stated they would refuse any amount of money. Another 20% stated it would take more than $1 million, while only 6% entertained the idea of allowing unrestricted access for $100 or less.

Even the “nothing to hide” group drew a firm line here: 58% responded they would refuse to hand over their unlocked phone for any amount of money, compared with 66% of those who claimed they have something to hide. 

Would you share your private messages for three months’ salary?

For nearly half of the respondents, the answer was “no.” 49% stated they would refuse to share their messages (SMS, chat-app, and email) with any listed entity, even in exchange for 3 months’ salary. Refusal rises to 61% among those who say they have “something to hide”.

Even among the “nothing to hide” group, willingness to share was limited. Roughly one-third would be willing to sell access to their messages to their local government (34%), big tech companies (33%), law enforcement (33%), or the federal government (30%).

Who gets to know where you are?

Respondents drew another clear privacy boundary around continuous location tracking, showing far greater comfort sharing precise location with people they know than with institutions and private businesses.

Just over half (51%) were comfortable continuously sharing their precise location with close family members, followed by partners (48%), close friends (37%), and parents (35%).

Government institutions and private businesses sit at the opposite end of the spectrum: just 8% were comfortable allowing governments continuous access to their precise location, while only 7% indicated the same regarding private businesses. One in five respondents (21%) stated they wouldn’t allow anyone continuous access to their precise location. 

Conclusion

At the heart of these findings is a contradiction that runs through people’s attitudes towards privacy in general, and data privacy specifically. Many people feel uneasy keeping seemingly innocuous things private, equating privacy with secretiveness and secretiveness with guilt. This might be one source of the knee-jerk response “I’ve got nothing to hide.”

The fact is, though, that everyone has “something to hide.” Perfectly innocent data, when made public or made available to the wrong people or organizations, can become harmful. People understand this intuitively, when “data” refers to things like personal relationships, individual backgrounds, and medical issues, for example.

Data privacy in an age of sprawling, high-speed networks and automated data-harvesting systems, though, is beyond what human intuition can generally process. This may be why people who claim they have no need of privacy (because they “have nothing to hide”) admit to obscuring their device’s front-facing cameras. 

The challenge is that modern data collection operates at a scale that is difficult to see or intuitively understand. People may recognize the value of privacy when someone is looking over their shoulder or asking to unlock their phone, while finding it much harder to apply the same instinct to the vast amounts of personal data collected, combined, and shared online.

The findings suggest that the “nothing to hide” argument may therefore say less about how much people actually value privacy than about how difficult it is to see the consequences of losing it.

Methodology

This survey was conducted online between July 21 and July 29, 2026, capturing a national sample of 1,517 adult respondents in the United States. The sample was demographically balanced across age groups (Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers), geographic regions, gender, income, and education levels. Data analysis was performed across cross-tabulations including age/generation, household income, and self-identified privacy orientation (“nothing to hide” vs. “something to hide”).