UK consumers have lost faith in organisations' ability to handle data

The Information Commissioners Office has bad news for data handling businesses, consumers don't trust you.

David Neal, IT Week 19 Mar 2008

According to the Information Commisssioner UK consumers are increasingly worried about how organisations handle their data.

These concerns have lead to individuals taking much greater care over who they give their personal details to. Eight out of ten of us now take greater care in the way we look after our personal information, according to research published by the privacy watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office.

The ICO attributed much of this behaviour to the high profile data losses suffered at organisations like the HMRC, it added that 85 per cent of respondents now refuse to give out personal details whenever possible.

Three quarters of respondents admitted to having trust issues with organisations holding their information, fifty three per cent said that they had lost confidence in banks, local authorities, and government departments.

In order to reassure consumers the ICO has released a checklist that they can use to ask the right questions of organisations, announcing it David Smith, Deputy Commissioner at the ICO, said: “If we all regularly start to ask the right questions then organisations will respond to public demand and take the protection of our personal information more seriously. If organisations fail to recognise the importance of data protection they not only risk losing business. They could also face action from the ICO.”

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