A recent survey has shown consumers’ trust in organisations that hold their personal data is at an all-time low.
One of the biggest stories of 2013 has been that our personal data isn’t as well guarded as we might have thought. In particular, the actions of whistleblower Edward Snowden – who revealed the US and UK governments’ top-secret electronic surveillance programmes earlier in the year – came as a huge blow to people’s confidence in the organisations that handle their private information.
A survey carried out in October on behalf of Japanese technology giant Fujitsu confirms trust has fallen to an all-time low. From a pool of 3,000 Londoners, the researchers found less than one in ten (nine per cent) had any faith in organisations’ ability to protect their data. Furthermore, almost a third (29 per cent) of respondents reported they’d had their confidence shaken over the last year in particular.
This wasn’t limited to the public sector, either. While many respondents reported fearing the government is unable to safeguard electronic information, almost a third (31 per cent) highlighted social media companies as organisations they had "zero trust" in when it came to handling personal data securely – and 36 per cent said the same of financial services firms.
Meanwhile, a sizeable proportion of respondents felt strongly that businesses should be held accountable for data loss. One in ten (10 per cent) said they’d hold the chief executive personally responsible, while one in five (20 per cent) told pollsters they’d inform the police of the matter.
So what can organisations do to safeguard their customer’s information and begin the healing process? It’s clearly a pressing issue that some of this trust should be restored, or else business could be lost.
If your company has migrated data from hard copies to a new paperless system, security is a particularly big concern – it’s much easier to have your data stolen when it can be copied onto a USB drive or downloaded from the cloud than when it’s stored on-site in a heavy filing cabinet.
Dajon’s electronic document management makes sure your records can only be accessed by authenticated users, encrypting all information as standard so it can’t be sniffed out during transmission. To discuss your cyber security requirements, why not give us a call?