The use of social media is endemic. According to Facebook’s own statistics, the social networking giant has an average of 699 million active daily users, 1.15 billion monthly active users, and 819 million monthly active users of mobile products, with approximately 80% of daily active users located outside Canada and the US.

The European Commission’s statistical office, Eurostat, has said that more than half of all internet users post messages to social media. In 2012, a Eurostat survey showed Portugal to have the highest percentage of users who posted messages to social media (75%), with France and Germany having the lowest percentage of social media users (40% and 42% respectively). Eurostat figures from 2011 show an average of 38% of individuals aged between 16 and 74 participated in social networks in 2011, with a proportion of 80% of users aged 16-24. Social networks “play a vital role for maintaining social contacts among the younger age group,” according to Eurostat.

Originally published in Privacy and Data Protection Journal, Vol. 4, Iss. 1 on November 5, 2013.