Over half of Kiwis more worried about privacy online than two years ago
Monday, 7 May 2018
High profile privacy breaches have Kiwis on edge, with more than two-thirds worried about online security.
A biannual survey by the Privacy Commission involving 1600 Kiwis found 67 per cent were concerned about their individual privacy, up 2 per cent from two years ago.
Recent breaches included Uber's loss of 57 million users information, Facebook's allowing Cambridge Analytica to access 64,000 Kiwi's information, and the breach of Vector's outage app that revealed personal information of 24,000 customers.
'It's continuing a trend that we've seen in our surveys which we conduct every two years,' Privacy Commissioner John Edwards said.
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'If we were to start seeing a reduction in the number of significant corporate leakages of data that might have some effect [on reversing the trend].'
Regulation of companies that handled personal data was beginning to catch up with the times, which Edwards said would also boost confidence.
'The pace of the tech sector is a factor there. The tools are increasingly democratised and available to low capital start ups. Law reform moves pretty slowly.'
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming into effect in Europe at the end of the month will have the power to impose fines up to €20million or 4 per cent of annual worldwide turnover, whichever is higher.
'I think that before too long we will start to see some real consequences for companies that fail to take their obligations seriously.'
NetSafe chief executive Martin Cocker said it's not what Kiwis felt but what they were willing to do to keep their data safe which was the real question.
Two-thirds of Kiwis felt uncomfortable sharing on social media, but were they willing to pay for services in exchange for control of their data? Cocker said no, they weren't.
Two-thirds of respondents said they trusted government organisations with their personal data, a drop of 9 per cent since 2014.
Cocker said this was a symptom of wider skepticism, and not government practice, which had improved in recent times.
Kiwis were most concerned about children putting information online and with businesses sharing information with other businesses.
Cocker said parents should talk to children about what they share, and educate them about consequences.
'Now we are sitting our children down and talking about the birds and the bees – and their privacy.'
Drones were also a growing concern, with 62 per cent concerned with their use in residential areas.
WHY KIWIS SHOULD BE WORRIED: JULIE ILES' STORY
This year I've tried to hunt down a catfish using my photos on Tinder, discovered my first ever email was leaked in a Neopets hack and found out Cambridge Analytica got a hold of my data.
Needless to say some of my personal data has ended up in places I did not sign up for.
I've been on social media since I was 13 years old, and I may never know exactly what was mined from my fingertips as I was coming of age, but the fact it was a commodity was something I didn't realise until I was much older.
I've come to expect my email to be spammed, and receive random calls from overseas, but I'll admit even I was a bit of surprised to see a Tinder profile of a 26-year-old named Erika using photos of me as a teenager.
In my defense, I at least use a password manager to generate passwords (shoutout to 1Password).
But I've realised the danger in not paying the people that hold your data means they're not beholden to you, and that's a behemoth business model that doesn't seem to be changing.
*Julie Iles is a reporter with Stuff.