In previous blog posts, I shared insights about how different consumer groups feel about connected cars and personal data, taken from the consumer survey conducted earlier this year. In this post, I’ll dig into how much consumers trust different institutions.
Credit Card Companies’ Data Handling Practices Earn the Most Trust
We asked our survey respondents about their confidence in nine types of organizations that have access to their personal data. As you can see from the chart below, credit card companies are the most trusted.
Social Media Sites Have Earned the Most Distrust, Followed by the Federal Government
In the survey responses, the “very confident” percentage reached a low of 11% in the case of social media sites – this is an all time low. In addition, 26% are not at all confident; this number is low, but I expected it to be even lower.
The government was not that far behind with 17%very confident and 39% somewhat confident, and 19% not at all confident.
5 Lessons We Can Learn
- The banks that issue credit cards are known for their focus on security. Retailers, on the other hand, have experienced a record number of data breaches in the last year, exposing their customers’ credit card numbers to hackers. (Here’s a list from 2018 alone. And let’s not forget the Marriott hack just revealed at the end of November…)
- Credit card companies are proactive about alerting their customers to unusual activity, so they can quickly shut off a compromised account.
- Cellular operators, software companies, and email providers have added two-factor authentication to more of their interactions. While only 61% of our survey respondents use two-factor authentication, it does seem to confer some trust.
- Obscure terms of service and lack of transparency about how data is used break trust. Our data show the extent to which consumers have lost faith in social media – and Facebook’s quarterly numbers this year have shown the bottom-line impacts. Don’t do what they did!
- Personal experience with a brand builds trust. For example, 77% of current connected car owners were confident or somewhat confident that automotive manufacturers would properly secure their data, compared to 71% of new car buyers. The confidence measure for connected car owners compares favorably with that of credit card companies.
You can access the full report, and all of our findings about data privacy attitudes in the connected car era, here.
Architected for security and privacy by design, Otonomo’s platform complies with even the most stringent data privacy regulations including GDPR and CCPA, ensuring all parties are protected and companies remain compliant across multiple geographies.
