Consumers in Singapore and Australia share more personal information now than they did two years ago, but more in the two Asian markets will ditch service providers that suffer a data breach than their global counterparts. The former also are disgruntled about having to provide their data to use online services.

Some 67% of respondents across Singapore and Australia felt they had little choice but to divulge their personal information in order to use online services. In fact, 54% said they shared their data with so many organisations online each day that they could not verify each company's ability to safeguard personal data, according to a survey commissioned by security vendor Imperva. 

Conducted by YouGov, the online study polled 6,773 consumers in the two Asian markets as well as the US and UK, with 1,079 respondents from Singapore and 1,004 from Australia. 

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Singapore must return data control to users to regain public trust

Trust plays an important role in consumers' willingness to share their personal data, but trust will erode if businesses continue to be given wider access to personal data and Singaporeans do not feel empowered to safeguard their own cyber hygiene.

More in Singapore and Australia, at 46%, said they shared more personal information now than they did two years ago, compared to the global average of 33%. 

Feeling compelled to share their personal data, 37% in the Asian markets said their trust in digital services providers' willingness to safeguard their personal data had dipped over the past five years. The global average for this was 41%. 

Specifically, retailers and online games services providers were deemed the least trustworthy in protecting confidential information, with just 5% of respondents in Asia expressing trust in these companies. Another 8% trusted social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. 

Government and financial organisations were amongst the most trusted. Some 44% had complete trust in the former, while 41% trusted financial business would keep their personal data private.

Some 50% in the two Asian markets would stop or had stopped using services from companies that suffered a serious data breach, higher than the global average of 43%. 

Despite their lack of trust in some businesses, respondents appeared more willing to reveal personal data on cloud-based messaging platforms. Some 23% admitted to having said something via these services to a colleague, friend, or family member that could damage a relationship. Another 18% acknowledged to uttering offensive, such as homophobic and racist, statements while 16% had intentionally lied on these messaging platforms.

Across the board, 37% in Singapore and Australia had discussed private topics via a cloud messaging app or service, despite 93% acknowledging they could face serious consequences if these conversations were leaked. Some 45% would feel violated if this happened, while 29% said they could lose their job if their conversations on cloud messaging platforms were leaked. 

Imperva's Asia-Pacific Japan regional vice president, George Lee, said: "Consumers face a disheartening Catch-22 scenario: they need digital services to operate in modern life, but their trust in these services is deteriorating. Businesses need to focus on who is accessing their data and protecting the paths a cybercriminal might exploit to get to the data. Taking a data-centric security approach must be part of every organisation's strategy as consumers grow increasingly cynical of the services they use."

According to Forrester's 2021 State of Enterprise Breaches, 68% of respondents in Asia-Pacific revealed they suffered at least one security breach last year, higher than the global average of 63%. Businesses in this region took a median of 33 days to identify and eradicate an attack and 11 days to recover from an attack. They lost a median of$2.2 million per breach. 

Globally, organisations spent a median of 27 days identifying and eradicating an attack as well as 10 days to recover from a breach. It cost businesses a median of$2.4 million in total per breach.

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