Digital trust at a global low

Australia behind US and China.

Consumer digital trust in Australian organisations has been ranked the lowest in the world, according to a report conducted by analyst firm, Frost & Sullivan, indexing at 54 points out of 100. This compares to countries including the US at 61 points and China at 67 points.

The extensive global survey highlights the lack of confidence in the way organisations collect, store and use the digital information of its customers.

The inaugural report, titled Global State of Digital Trust Survey and Index 2018, reveals that consumer digital trust is lower than organisations think, with Australia reporting an 18% perception gap – the largest gap in the Asia Pacific region and the second largest in the world behind Italy.

To highlight this further, the number of Australian consumers surveyed who claim their trust decreased, outnumbers those who claim the opposite.

CA Technologies Australia and New Zealand director of security, James Ross said, “This report comes at a critical time, as consumers are increasingly transacting online – whether for work, leisure or play – providing organisations with access to vast amounts of data, from consumer profiles and personal information to user behaviour and habits. With that increasing store of data also comes greater responsibility to protect it against abuse from external and internal sources.”

In Australia, IT security professionals (73%) and business executives (50%) both admit to using consumer data containing personally identifiable information (PII). Meanwhile, the sale of consumer data by business executives in Australia is the lowest in the world at 33%.

Frost & Sullivan industry principal of cybersecurity, Jarad Carleton said, “We are at a crossroads in the information age as more companies are being pulled into the spotlight for failing to protect the data they hold, so with this research, we sought to understand how consumers feel about putting data in organisations’ hands and how those organisations view their duty of care to protect that data.

“What the survey found is that there is certainly a price to pay – whether you’re a consumer or you run a business that handles consumer data – when it comes to maintaining data privacy. Respect for consumer privacy must become an ethical pillar for any business that collects user data.”