Information Commissioner’s Office – Trust and confidence in data

An online survey of adults in the UK about trust and confidence in data.

Only a fifth of the UK public report (20%) having trust and confidence in companies and organisation storing their personal information.
Reported trust is reasonably consistent across the new proposed ComRes measure of the first ICO strategic goal, and the original comparable questions asked in the ICO 2016 tracker survey.
However, distrust is expressed more strongly in the ICO tracker (49% distrust) compared to the ComRes proposed question (38%), likely reflecting the emphasis on businesses in the former, and the broader companies and organisations in the latter.
Overall, the UK public are more likely to trust public bodies than private companies or organisations regarding holding or sharing their personal information, but younger UK adults report broadly being more positive towards both of these than older generations.
Despite this, there is a limited understanding of how people’s personal information is made available and is used, with less than a tenth (8%) of the UK public saying they have a good understanding of how their information is made available to others.

Date Published: 6th November 2017

Categories: Business | Public and communities | Social | Technology & Telecoms | UK

Client: Information Commissioner's Office

Methodology

ComRes interviewed 2,153 UK adults online on 12th and 27th July 2017. Data were weighted to be demographically representative of all UK adults aged 18+ by age, gender, region and socio-economic grade. ComRes is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.