50% of Internet Users Give False Information for Safety Reasons

A research has shown that almost 50 percent of internet users around the world are giving false information to companies that ask them to for fear of the safety of their data.

RSA has found out that 49 percent of the people online are giving false information about themselves due to the concerns of their safety.

According to the research, more people give false phone numbers when asked by companies online with others giving wrong email addresses.

The research found out that 27 percent of online users give wrong phone numbers, 17 percent give an incorrect date of birth, 16 percent of them give wrong email address while 15 and 14 percent respectively give a wrong home address and age respectively.

“Cybersecurity incidents are increasing at astonishing rates with no end in sight. The impact of these incidents in business disruption, cost, and invasion of individual privacy has provoked a groundswell of legislation and government regulation across the globe,” stated the report.

Almost four out of five web users say that a company’s reputation in regards to how securely it holds customer data inform their purchasing decisions and 70% of customers said they would boycott companies which didn’t seriously work to protect their data.

Up to 90% of people said they feared that companies would lose their data, and 62% of consumers said that they would blame the company if it was lost before anyone else, including the hacker.