Harris Poll Reveals American Attitudes Towards Cybersecurity and Privacy

Dtex Report Reveals Majority Believes Digital Activity Monitoring Is Acceptable When Conducted to Provide Cybersecurity

Dtex Systems, the leader in user behavior intelligence and insider threat detection, published the Dtex 2018 Privacy & Cybersecurity Index. The index reveals that a majority of Americans believe it is acceptable for organizations spanning multiple industries to conduct user digital activity and behavior monitoring when it is done to provide defense against threats and breaches. It also shows that a vast majority of Americans would lose trust in organizations that conceal monitoring programs. To compile the index, Dtex commissioned The Harris Poll to conduct an online survey that polled more than 2,000 Americans.*

“Scandals are consuming Facebook and other companies that collect massive data volumes. These are causing a surge in privacy demands and regulations that security and risk professionals need to contend with,” said Rajan Koo, SVP of Customer Engineering, Dtex Systems. “They are now looking for new and innovative ways to monitor human behaviors and activities without violating privacy or trust. This report will help them to do both.”

Read More: Wind River Teams With Renesas to Advance Autonomous Driving Applications

The survey revealed many key findings, including:

• Social Media: When asked if it is ever acceptable for social media companies to conduct digital activity monitoring over users to provide defense against threats and data breaches, 51 percent of Americans indicate it is.
• Banks: When asked if it is ever acceptable for banks to conduct digital activity monitoring over customers to provide defense against threats and data breaches, 65 percent of Americans indicate it is.
• Government: When asked if it is ever acceptable for government organizations to conduct digital activity monitoring over citizens to provide defense against threats and data breaches, 61 percent of Americans indicate it is.
• Retail: When asked if it is ever acceptable for retail companies to conduct digital activity monitoring over shoppers to provide defense against threats and data breaches, 60 percent of Americans indicate it is.
• Deception: 79 percent of Americans would trust a company less if they discovered that it was monitoring consumers’ digital activities without their knowledge.

Earlier this year, Dtex released findings from the same poll. It revealed how American employees feel about employer digital activity monitoring programs. Those results are summarized at the end of the index.

Read More: Virtual Assistant Technology – Empowering the Human Workforce of Tomorrow

*Survey Methodology

This survey was conducted online within the United States by The Harris Poll on behalf of Dtex Systems from June 14 to 18, 2018 among 2,024 U.S. adults ages 18 and older, among whom 833 are employed full-time. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated. For complete survey methodology, including weighting variables and subgroup sample sizes, please contact Joe Franscella.

Read More: The Future of AI: Are Jobs Under Threat?