The Influence of Legal Literacy on Awareness of Personal Data Protection Among Users of Digital Platforms

Objective: This study aims to examine and analyze the impact of legal literacy on awareness of personal data protection among users of digital platforms in Indonesia, given the public’s limited understanding of Law No. 27 of 2022 on Personal Data Protection (PDP Law) amid the widespread use of digital services. Research Design & Methods: This study employed an associative quantitative approach using a survey method. Since the size of the population of digital platform users is not precisely known, the sample size was determined using the Lemeshow formula, resulting in 100 respondents selected through purposive sampling. Data were collected via a 1–5 Likert-scale questionnaire and analyzed using validity and reliability tests, classical assumption tests, and simple linear regression using IBM SPSS Statistics 26. Findings: All items in the instrument were found to be valid and reliable (Cronbach’s Alpha 0.921 for legal literacy and 0.926 for awareness of personal data protection). The regression results indicate that legal literacy is positively and significantly associated with awareness of personal data protection (t = 6.430; sig. = 0.000 < 0.05) with a coefficient of determination (R²) of 0.297, meaning that legal literacy statistically accounts for 29.7% of the variation in awareness of personal data protection. Contributions: This study strengthens the empirical evidence that an understanding of personal data protection regulations is a key correlate of users’ legal awareness and provides an empirical basis for the formulation of digital legal literacy policies in Indonesia.Practical Implications: The findings give regulators, digital platform operators, and educational institutions an empirical basis for prioritizing legal-literacy education—delivered in accessible language and paired with technical literacy and privacy-skill training—as part of strategies to raise public awareness of personal data protection.  Novelty: Rather than focusing on a single digital platform or a specific user segment such as students, as most prior quantitative studies have done, this study uses a Lemeshow-based sampling approach for a population of unknown size to examine legal literacy and awareness of personal data protection across multiple types of digital platforms among the general working-age population.