Data Trust Gap

I’ve just had a read of Symantec’s State of Privacy Report – 2015. It’s well worth a quick scan if you’ve not come across it before.

It highlights some of the contradictions and challenges we face in our industry.

Here are 4 core statistics:

So customers see privacy as really important, and state it affects buying decisions, yet technology companies fall way short of being seen as trustworthy. The challenge is referred to as the Data Trust Gap in the report.

The dilemma appears to be that either technology companies are not hearing the message, or more likely there is not sufficient commercial imperative to do anything about it.

Despite the high profile data losses, and 88% of people claiming this is an important buying decision, most companies seem to recover from big data losses – the 88% of people do not appear to follow concerns with action by switching brand.

Something has to change the status quo, the “it’s a big bad Internet” story does not seem to be changing behaviours. If we are not careful we will sleep walk into the “big bad Internet of Things” – but here the stakes are higher, it’s not just privacy that could be lost.

I’d welcome your ideas in the comments below on what will change the status quo?