The pandemic has made consumers in the UK more worried about their online privacy, a new report by digital identity firm Callsign is saying.
Polling 2,000 UK adults, Callsign says almost a third (32 percent) are more worried than before the pandemic, and of those people – another third say it’s because they don’t know what data the companies are gathering on them.
Close to another third (29 percent) said they worry more because they feel as though they’ve had to share more. This was in part due to an increasing number of businesses moving online.
At the same time, they don’t seem to be doing that much to remain secure online, either. Roughly a third (36 percent) are confident in the strength of their passwords, and another third (33 percent) only update them when prompted to do so by a business or organization.
Fingerprint scanning, one-time passwords and facial recognition are considered the most secure and trustworthy forms of online authentication, the report further uncovered. Still, just a tenth of consumers signed up to use more biometric methods. Many of them just aren’t comfortable using static biometrics, such as fingerprint ID or facial recognition, when buying a product or a service, the report concluded.
“The fact that consumers are worried about privacy when using their digital identities highlights how digital identification needs to change,” commented Amir Nooriala, chief commercial officer at Callsign. “This has become even more important since the Covid-19 pandemic.”
