UK family would need about 83 hours, or 10.4 working days, to read 257 consumer privacy and terms documents linked to one ordinary day
ZURICH, Sept. 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — A UK family would need more than 10 full working days to read the privacy small print attached to the digital services and systems involved in one ordinary day, according to a new Web3 Foundation study.
The modelled family scenario involved 257 documents containing 1,184,835 words. That is about 83 hours of reading, or 10.4 eight-hour working days, and 34% more than the 884,647 words in William Shakespeare’s complete works.
The White Paper, Everyday Surveillance: What One Ordinary Day May Reveal About You, mapped six model households in the UK and US. Researchers identified 1,195 relevant consumer privacy and terms documents containing more than 5.38 million words.
Across 143 companies and institutions, 83% describe the ability to use personal data for marketing or advertising, 80% to combine it with other information, 71% to sharing with commercial partners and at least 24% have documents stating that user data may be used to train or improve AI or machine-learning systems.
The study does not claim to be a national survey or to describe the practices of every user. It examines documented capabilities and permissions across evidence-led model scenarios involving ordinary digital services and systems in the UK and US.
Gavin Wood, founder of Web3 Foundation, said: “We did what consumers are told to do: we read the privacy policies. For the modelled UK family, one ordinary day means more than ten working days of reading. None of this is hidden. Rather, it is disclosed, in public, in full, and at a volume that functions as concealment.”
Bill Laboon, Vice President of Technical Operations at Web3 Foundation, said: “What is striking is how much data may be generated around completely ordinary digital activity. The report raises the question of whether we can build services differently, for example, by allowing people to prove what is needed without routinely disclosing the underlying information.”
The White Paper and Technical Methodology: https://web3.foundation/insights/
Media enquiries: Tom Collins, tom@zebek.co.uk, +44 7904 496117
About Web3 Foundation: Web3 Foundation supports a fairer internet.
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