Brussels, 08/02/2008 (Agence Europe) - In connection with the 5th Safer Internet Day, to be held on 12 February 2008, Eurostat presented a selection of statistics on Friday 8 February concerning online activities, security concerns and virus attacks. An examination of the figures published shows that many European citizens are still rather reluctant to shop online, albeit with considerable disparities from one member state to the next. By contrast, more and more Europeans are using online banking. The EU's statistical office also notes that a quarter of internet users in the EU have suffered a virus attack over the last 12 months.
According to Eurostat, the percentage of people aged 16 to 74 who ordered goods or services over the internet in the EU27 has gone from 24% in 2005 to 30% in 2007. The highest proportions of online shoppers in 2007 were registered in Denmark (55% in 2006), the Netherlands (55%) Sweden and the UK (53% each), with the lowest seen in Bulgaria and Romania (3% each) and Lithuania (6%). In 2006, 12% of people aged 16 to 74 in the EU27 said that they had not bought goods or services online over the preceding 12 months because they did not wish to give their credit card number or personal details online. Such fears linked to the security of online purchases and privacy were most common in Spain (27%), Finland (26%) and Cyprus (20%).
In the EU27 the percentage of internet users, that is people aged 16-74 who had used the internet in the three months preceding the survey, went from 52% in 2006 to 57% in 2007. Over the same period the proportion of internet users who used online banking services increased from 38% to 44%. In 2007 the proportion was highest in Finland (84%), Estonia (83%) and the Netherlands (77%), and lowest in Bulgaria (5%), Romania (7%) and Greece (12%).
Finally, in 2007 almost one quarter of internet users in the EU27 said that they had been the victim of a computer virus in the preceding 12 months which had caused them a loss of information or time. Virus attacks are most frequent in Lithuania (41% of users), Slovenia (35%) and Malta (34%) and least frequent in the Czech Republic (7%), Estonia (15%) and Sweden (16%). (O.L.)