CONSUMER PRIVACY

Almost every person questioned in survey objects to reselling of data

By our News Team | 2023

Hypothetically, consumers would even go as far as to pay to prevent their personal information being resold to third parties.

Overwhelmingly, international consumers value their personal data and are concerned about the information being collected by the likes of retail stores, service providers and loyalty schemes.

The research, led by the University of Bristol in the UK and published in the peer-reviewed Library of Science journal Plos One, found that 96% of people would protect their personal data from being shared by these organisations for commercial gain if they had a choice.

Photo courtesy of https://howtostartablogonline.net/ via Flickr

Study participants completed a 30-min online hypothetical task that asked consumers whether they would be happy to pay to keep their data private. And, if so, how much they were willing to pay to protect it.

Categories of data included: electricity consumption; medical records; mobile phone GPS data; social media; online browsing history; banking transactions; physical activity; and loyalty cards.

Results showed that, overall, 96% of individuals were willing to pay to avoid sharing their personal data in at least one of the data-sharing categories. Banking transactions was the data type people considered the most important to protect, with almost every person keeping their banking data private.

Medical records also high on the privacy wish-list

This was followed by medical records data, with at least 79% of people willing to pay to protect this information, 72% for mobile phone GPS data, 43% for online browsing history, and 39.8% to protect social media data.

Data collected via loyalty cards, electricity use, and physical activity was seen as less valuable, as fewer participants were willing to pay to protect it.

The researchers emphasise that they are not advocating for a market for personal data – in which service users are forced to pay for online privacy – but merely want to highlight how much value consumers place on the privacy of their data.

“Digital technology opens up a new era in personal data sharing of consumer behaviour and habits,” said Dr Anya Skatova of Bristol University.

“Most of us pay our pay our bills and do our banking online, [as well as] interact with friends online. All these interactions leave a trail of data as we go about our daily business. While it is often promised that this data is secure, it can used by undisclosed third parties which doesn’t always benefit the consumer whose data is being used.”

“Our results from this research show how high a value people put on the privacy of their data, especially where there is no personal benefit to them.”

You can read more about the research here.

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