Nearly two out of every five (37%) consumers in Singapore and Australia say their trust in digital service providers’ willingness to protect their personal data has decreased over the past five years.
At the same time, about two-thirds (67%) of them feel they have no choice but to share their personal data if they want to use online services. Over half (54%) said they share their data with so many companies online every day that they can’t possibly verify each one’s track record of how well they look after and protect personal data.
These are from results of a survey conducted by YouGov online on December 22-30, 2021, covering a total of 6,773 adults across the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Singapore. There were 1,004 respondents from Australia and 1,079 from Singapore.
“Consumers face a disheartening Catch-22 scenario — they need digital services to operate in modern life, but their trust in these services is deteriorating,” said George Lee, regional VP at Imperva Asia Pacific and Japan.
Half (50%) of the respondents in Singapore and Australia combined said they stopped, or would stop, using a company’s services following a serious data breach. The average in the US and UK is 43%.
Close to 46% of respondents in Singapore and Australia reported having shared more personal data than two years ago , compared to the average of 33% in other markets.
Thus, organisations serving customers in Singapore and Australia need to swiftly strengthen their ability to manage and protect sensitive data. Firms that fail to do so should expect to see their business and revenue impacted.
Survey findings also show that trust has hit rock bottom, with only retailers and online gaming are perceived to be least trustworthy in keeping private information safe. Only 5% of respondents in the four countries trust these two groups.
Only 8% trust social media companies like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, but the most trusted are government and financial organisations (41%).
Also, the cloud is full of secrets, as residents of Singpore and Australia admit to sharing some of their most intimate secrets on cloud messaging services.
These secrets include information about a colleague, friend or family member that could ruin a relationship, views that are offensive (sexist, racist or homophobic), sexual fantasies or fetishes, lying about something, and reproductive health issues.
Further, leaked data has the potential to ruin lives. Two in every five (37%) of respondents in Singapore and Australia discussed private topics using a cloud messaging app or service, and 93% admit they could face serious consequences if their private discussions online were leaked.
If their conversations were leaked, they fear that this would ruin their relationships with their friends or family (51%), would feel violated by the experience (45%), their mental health could be impacted (41%), could beleft open to blackmail (35%), and lose or be forced to leave their job (29%).
