47 per cent of UK consumers do not trust the government with private data

Almost half of British consumers do not trust the government to keep their personal data secure, a new report has found. New research published by Venafi evaluated the attitudes and opinions of 3,000 adult consumers from the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany on initiatives that would grant governments more access to private, encrypted data. According to the study, which was conducted by One Poll, 40 per cent of UK consumers do not think the government should be able force technology companies to allow them access to personal data that has been encrypted to keep it private. However, the study also found that 41 per cent believe laws that allow the government to access said data will make them safer from terrorists, while 25 per cent think that allowing the government to access encrypted, private data would actually benefit cyber criminals. The report highlighted that 50 per cent of British consumers think governments should not be able to force consumers to hand over person data, such as the contents of their mobile phone, social media account and email, while 69 per cent do not trust their government’s ability to fight cybercrime - higher than the global average of 62 per cent. It is clear from the results that consumers do not understand the impact that encryption backdoors will have on their privacy and they are confused about how backdoors can be abused by cybercriminals. Jeff Hudson, CEO of Venafi, said: “The results of this research indicate that security and privacy are probably going to get a lot worse before they get better. It’s very clear that consumers are confused about what access to encrypted data will mean to their privacy, and it’s equally clear that governments don’t understand how encryption backdoors will be used to undermine our global digital economy. The negative impact encryption backdoors will have on every aspect of security and privacy is tremendous. “Giving governments access to encryption will not make us safer from terrorism – in fact, the opposite is true. Most people don’t trust the government to protect data and they don’t believe the government is effective at fighting cybercrime. It’s ironic that we believe we would be safer if governments were given more power to access private encrypted data because this will undermine the security of our entire digital economy.”