63% of Consumers Reluctant To Share Personal Data With Apps

A report from global trade association MEF, carried out in partnership with On Device Research, which was intended to sound out consumers’ feelings on applications collecting and using personal information for business purposes. The research found that just 37% of the respondents to a survey of 9,500 people don’t mind providing private data with an app.

The study, which covered 10 countries, further revealed that 35% of consumers have second thoughts when providing information about their location and 52% are reluctant to disclose billing data within an app.

Most users (70%) insist on being notified when personal data is gathered by an app, while 71% prefer to be informed when such data is shared. This implies that consumers want apps to be transparent when collecting and using their data in order to help them decide whether to download the app or not. According to MEF’s 2012 Global Consumer Survey, 35% of people avoid shopping regularly via their devices just because they don’t trust apps enough. As such, transparency, security and control are the three main properties that mobile apps should have in order to make consumers purchase more.

Most people share the opinion that online data is adequately secure, with just 18% fearing that their private data is not sufficiently protected; women and people aged over 35 are those with the biggest concerns over security.

About one in three consumers also believe that they fully control the information flow advertisers access for their purposes, the study also found. In fact, consumers don’t have the power to control the way businesses deploy private data, which implies that there is a huge gap between the capabilities people think they have and their real power, according to MEF.