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EXCLUSIVE: Data Security – How Much Digital Trust Do UK Consumers Have?
“‘Barely a moment goes by without a data breach, ransomware attack or another incident impacting consumers’ personal data hitting the news”, says Dan Middleton, Regional VP for UK&I at Veeam, Software, the global leader in data protection. These breaches are only heightening the concerns of UK consumers about the security of their data.
The data stored by financial services organisations couldn’t be more sensitive and yet there still remains an element of distrust towards those who we have given responsibility over that data. “Whether data is kept in cloud, virtual, physical storage, SaaS or Kubernetes, its imperative data protection and recovery be up to standard.” Is there a communication gap between what the average consumer needs and what the technological elite are doing? Let’s evaluate how safe you really feel your data is!
In the research conducted by Veeam Software, 2,000 consumers were studied in order to reveal the impact that news of outages, data breaches and cyber-attacks has had on the level of trust placed in financial organisations. From this, many shocking statistics prevailed, but the 3 I found to be most telling of the disparity of the situation were how:
- 57% had no idea what companies do with their personal information
- 48% are already actively reducing, or trying to reduce, the amount of personal information they share
- 40% have lost confidence in the ability of companies to protect their personal information
When it comes to discussing data, we are often flattered by the golden quote that ‘data is the new oil.’ There’s such a wide understanding of its importance, and yet this research clearly highlights how many feel that their data is managed poorly. Middleton noted that the findings also emphasise ‘the need for all businesses, not just financial services organisations, to place more of a priority on consumer awareness, but also in taking the necessary steps to protect and secure that same data to build trust.’
For nearly half of the respondents in the survey, there is a feeling of being left in the dark, and this will only be corrected when organisations become more transparent with their clients. Whilst the effect that Europe’s second payment services directive (PSD2) is having on making Open Banking initiatives more common, Middleton noted that ‘consumers are ultimately unclear about how their data is being used and question whether they are seeing the benefits of sharing it in the first place. (57%) say they have no idea what companies do with their personal information. Banks, insurers and fintech brands alike invest a huge amount in developing a sense of stability and reliability, but it can all collapse in a matter of moments if the IT infrastructure that supports their operations doesn’t match.’ It begs the question, are we still not doing enough?
The Bank of Ireland, for example, was recently handed a €24.5m fine after failing to implement a robust framework to ensure continuity of service for customers in the event of significant IT disruption. Despite the launch of more regulatory directives, even some of the biggest national institutions are still falling short of the benchmark for data security. If this standard were to continue, then customers would act accordingly, as the survey also reported that ‘over half (55%) of respondents would disengage from businesses or service providers that compromised their personal data or privacy by deleting their accounts. This could very well be the case, since 47% of consumers have noticed an increase in cybercrime and attempts at data theft.
In fact, research taken last year from Callsign, an identity protection company and digital trust pioneer, also noted this problem, as 35% of their surveyed UK consumers lost trust in banks and retailers due to the consistent spoofing of brand names in what they dubbed, ‘the global scamdemic.’ Honing in deeper on their research, 44% of scam victims want to understand where fraudsters even began to obtain their details in the first place. In a world where fintechs and banks prides themselves on cloud based solutions, performance enhancing AI and machine learning, companies are failing to prioritise customer preferences. There is clearly a communication gap between what the average consumer needs and what the technological elite are doing. And that’s not to blame the technological elite for not filling the gap, but it does show we aren’t all the way there yet.
It’s clear more needs to be done to protect our data. We must be careful and remind ourselves what our breakthroughs in technology can mean for all consumers and put those advancements to a good use that consumers can understand, interpret and believe in. If we lose sight of that, digital trust will crumble as we know it.
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