Breaches In Privacy and Security Keeping People Offline, Study Says
Americans are becoming increasingly concerned with privacy and security online.
With the Internet and its use becoming more ubiquitous in daily life, more and more people are going online, using their mobile phones or computers at home and at work. A recent study conducted by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, however, showed that more Americans are becoming fearful of going online because of their concerns about online security.
According to a report in PC Magazine, of the 41,000 households participating in the survey, about one-fifth of the respondents said that they experienced some form of data breach or identity theft in their overall Internet experience.
The NTIA report says that Americans are becoming increasingly concerned with privacy and security online. When the survey asked the respondents whether these security and privacy concerns kept them from doing online transactions, 45 percent of the households reported that they opted not to conduct financial transactions, online purchases, post on social networks or share their opinions or political views online, while 30 percent of households decided not to engage in any two of the activities mentioned.
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When asked about what concerned them the most, majority of the households or 63 percent cited identity theft as their primary concern. Credit card and banking fraud were main concerns for 45 percent of the households, while data collection by online services concerned 23 percent and 22 percent were concerned with losing control over personal data online.
For households who actually experienced some form of data breach online, the fear that it will happen again is far greater than those who have not experienced anything bad yet.
The NTIA will be conducting further studies on this phenomenon as this may likely affect the online activities of households, which may be considered economically and politically relevant. It intends to look at it closely in order for it formulate policies that will address security and privacy concerns and make people become more comfortable in using the Internet once again. These may include instituting encryption and putting together a "baseline set of online privacy protections" for everyone.
