US family would need 78.3 hours, or 9.8 workdays, to read 233 privacy policies, terms and notices linked to one ordinary day

ZURICH, Sept. 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — A US family would need almost 10 full workdays to read the privacy policies, terms and notices surrounding the digital services and systems used in their one ordinary day, according to a new Web3 Foundation study.

The US family modelled scenario involved 233 documents containing 1,118,224 words. That is 78.3 hours of reading, or 9.8 eight-hour workdays, and 26% 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 United States and United Kingdom. Researchers identified 1,195 relevant consumer privacy and terms documents containing more than 5.38 million words.

In the US family modelled scenario, 81 organizations were linked to the household during an ordinary weekday. Everyday systems may generate thousands of data points, including around 2,000 heart-rate readings from wearables, minute-by-minute records from school-managed devices and continuous location availability through family location-sharing services.

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 US family, one ordinary day means almost 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 inquiries: Tom Collins, tom@zebek.co.uk, +44 7904 496117

About Web3 Foundation: Web3 Foundation supports a fairer internet.

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SOURCE Web3 Foundation