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Consumers smartening up to Privacy Issues

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According to a recent report from Pew Research, many Americans take privacy seriously—as in the cyber kind, but also offline. 2P

  • 9% of survey respondents thought they had strong control over how much of their personal information was collected and shared.
  • 38% thought they had moderate control; 37% believed they had little control; 13% said they had zero control.
  • 25% used temporary e-mail addresses or usernames for some online activities.
  • 24% gave non-truthful information about themselves (e.g., when registering on a site to post comments, a single woman might indicate that she’s a married man; or a childless person might indicate that he has kids).
  • 59% cleared their browser and cookies.
  • 47% avoided giving out non-relevant information for online transactions.
  • 55% remained anonymous for some online activities.
  • 74% believe the government should have better limits to collecting people’s data.

Why don’t more people do things in the name of privacy like adjust the settings of their accounts or smartphone? For starters, some don’t want to hassle with “techy” things, while others don’t think it’ll make any difference. Some just aren’t worried all that much and have nothing to hide. Others don’t want to pay more money for more security. And some are clueless over how much of their data gets shared, such as those who blindly allow mobile apps “permissions.”

Some users also know that higher privacy, in general, comes with slower loading times and other inconveniences. People want efficient usability. Nevertheless, people are getting cranky.

For example, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration was surveilling Americans’ phone calls overseas. They’ve now been sued. Secondly, the Stop Online Piracy Act was on the brink of being shelved, but lawmakers put a stop to these plans.

The National Security Agency’s metadata program with bulk phone calls was recently deemed illegal after the American Civil Liberties Union brought a lawsuit to the U.S. federal appeals court.

And that’s just a sample. There are more lawsuits in the works in the name of Americans’ privacy rights.

Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert to BestIDTheftCompanys.com discussing identity theft prevention. Disclosures.

Healthcare Establishing Customer Security Programs

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Consumers really get stiffed when there’s a data breach, having to change their passwords, replace credit cards, and other bothersome tasks, not to mention the grief over stolen personal information.

10DHealthcare organizations (a prime target of cyber criminals for several reasons) need to think beyond the approach of, “Here’s how we’re protecting your data,” and shift their way of thinking to, “We are dead serious about our customers’ security.”

This is how healthcare organizations can be truly proactive. While organizations can’t reveal too much information about their security plans (since this can make it easier for exploitation), they DO need to be generous with candid messages about how vital it is to protect consumer data.

Throwing around the same generic, recycled language about “Here’s what we’re doing to protect you” no longer cuts it and doesn’t build a lot of trust in the consumer. Instead, organizations should impress upon consumers their devotion to security in meaningful and understandable ways.

Consumer security should be free to the customer. This will delight consumers and help ease their anxieties over data safety, while setting the organization apart from its competitors. That’s how to put the brand’s reputation at the top and build customer loyalty.

Key Features of a solid customer security program

  • Information must be protected at the time of sign-up/data collection, and protected should data be lost.
  • Being accountable for a data recovery and restoration in the event of a breach; this will build customer loyalty.
  • Financial loss must be recovered.
  • Credit reports must be restored.

According to AllClear ID, here is how healthcare organizations can make an impression on their customers:

  • Implementation of the most current IT practices should be done because it is paramount to secure mobile devices, access points, databases, cloud services, etc., and to better keep tabs on systems for breaches.
  • The security of employees’ personal mobiles and the organization’s devices needs to be stronger.
  • Employee training must be improved, from the bottom up, to reduce mistakes.
  • HIPAA compliance needs to be reinforced.
  • An identity protection plan must be created so that potential customers will have confidence in enrolling and feel less anxious about the fallout of a security breach.

Robert Siciliano is an Identity Theft Expert to AllClear ID. He is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen See him knock’em dead in this identity theft prevention video. Disclosures.

Your Customers’ High Cost of Privacy

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This writer has said numerous times that privacy is waning and dying. Partly because we have allowed it with our bazillion posts to social and partly because of the shift from print advertising to digital. During that shift, lots of creative types figured out how to figure you out and get inside your digital head. But all at a cost of your privacy.

1PArwa Mahdawi in the Gurdian brilliantly posed “Privacy isn’t dead, but it’s getting very expensive.” So true.

Ask yourself: as a decision maker for your business or employer, when it comes to protecting your organization’s customers’ or clients’ personal data, how proactive are you? And even if you’re proactive, are you aware of just what is involved on the part of the customer/client to ensure that their personal information doesn’t get into the wrong hands?

Or perhaps you’re not very active in this realm at all, figuring that it’s “up to the customer” to figure out how to secure their data, or that it’s the responsibility of the banks and credit card companies.

I contend that businesses who collect valuable data from customers and profit from it – from email addresses, to credit cards to SSNs – have the responsibility to protect the data collected. Otherwise customers inclined to do so must pay a fee to have their personal information protected. That business is booming.

It’s fair to speculate that if businesses, such as retailers and healthcare organizations, had an excellent history of keeping customers’ data airtight, the protection of privacy wouldn’t have become something that people must pay for.

Of course, there are ways that consumers can protect their privacy without paying for it, such as giving up the use of credit and debit cards, always remembering to disconnect their mobile device in public when they don’t need to be online, never seeing doctors, disabling their cookies, etc.

But let’s face it, these free approaches are impractical or even impossible. How many Internet users even know how to disable their cookies, or even what a cyber cookie is? How many know what a VPN is?

Consumers should not have to be tech savvy or have a lot of money or make impractical lifestyle changes in order for their private information to be leak-proof.

Robert Siciliano is an Identity Theft Expert to AllClearID. He is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen See him knock’em dead in this identity theft prevention video. Disclosures.

Businesses fail in Customer Privacy

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The U.S. Consumer Confidence Index, released by TRUSTe®, shows an alarming trend: A high percentage of U.S. people over age 18 are unnerved about their online privacy, and this trend is worsening.

2PThis survey was conducted online among 2,019 U.S. adults and reveals that 92 percent of the participants are on edge, at least some of the time, concerning online privacy. Nearly three-quarters of Internet users in the U.S. are worried about privacy more so than a year ago. And more users worry about business data collection versus government surveillance programs.

Many businesses are not taking measures to mitigate this concern among users. This can backfire on businesses, e.g., more people not willing to download apps or click on ads. Protecting consumers is crucial to a company’s success—not just with customers but with competitors; companies should not cut corners here.

What are the top reasons for privacy concerns? The top two responses: 1) Businesses sharing personal data, and 2) Businesses tracking online behavior.

More specific findings:

  • 58 percent of respondents were worried about businesses giving out their personal information with other businesses
  • 47 percent worried about businesses tracking their online actions
  • Only 38 percent named media attention to government surveillance programs as a cause for concern.

What are consumers doing about all this?

  • 83 percent are leery of ad clicking.
  • 80 percent won’t use smartphone apps that apparently don’t protect privacy.
  • 74 percent aren’t comfortable enabling location tracking on their smartphone.

Other findings of the TRUSTe survey:

  • User concerns over online privacy are climbing: 92 percent of users worry about privacy.
  • Trust with businesses is declining, coming in at 55 percent currently.
  • 89 percent of consumers will refrain from conducting business with a company they don’t feel is protecting their online privacy.

The public wants more:

The tides of privacy are turning and the public is waking up. Businesses who fail to take action will surely be met with customer defection.

Robert Siciliano is an Identity Theft Expert to AllClearID. He is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen See him knock’em dead in this identity theft prevention video. Disclosures.