Consumers show wariness over companies after data breach

2009-07-22

Over two-thirds of consumers would not do business with a company that exposed their sensitive, personal information because of a data breach, a study has revealed.

A survey carried out by GfK Custom Research for Identity Theft 911 also showed that nearly one-third of respondents said they had been given at least one data breach notification letter in the past two years.

Half of these revealed they had been given more than one.

Over three-quarters (77 per cent) of respondents said they were either somewhat or very concerned that identity theft could happen to them or someone they know well.

"Every week, we read about another data breach and consumers are not only angry, they feel violated when companies do not safeguard their personal information," commented Matthew Cullina, chief executive officer of Identity Theft 911.

Recent research from the Ponemon Institute's report named the 2009 Annual Study: US Enterprise Encryption Trends revealed that 85 per cent of US organisations have experienced one or more data breaches in the past 12 months.

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