Research Indicates Indian Businesses Overestimate Their Ability To Protect Consumer Data

There is a big disconnect between an organization’s perception of consumer trust and the actual consumer trust in India. Indian organizations are overestimating their ability to protect consumer data as well as the ability of the consumer to protect his own data, a recent study ‘The Global State of Online Digital Trust Survey & Index 2018’ by CA Technologies signifies. 

Digital trust is the confidence that consumers place in an organization to digitally collect, store and use the information in a manner that benefits and protects those to whom the information pertains. In current situations, consumers face major data breaches in enterprises and government agencies which makes the concept of digital trust crucially important. It is paramount for business leaders to understand this public sentiment and plan their strategies for their business taking this into account.

Revealing the India specific results of the report in an exclusive interaction with BW CIO, Sunil Manglore - Managing Director, India - CA Technologies said, “The survey clearly establishes a strong co-relationship between digital trust and the business that consumers do with organizations. The stronger the digital trust the greater the business that consumers do with that organization. There is also a huge negative impact as a result of law trust, as result of a breach in that trust and numerous instances that we have seen in the recent times confirm that of the losses that large organizations have to bear as a result of data breaches within the organization. So digital trust is important from a business standpoint.” 

The findings are based on the global survey sponsored by CA Technologies and conducted by Frost & Sullivan of 990 respondents across 10 countries, including India. The respondents included IT security professionals, end consumers and business executives from financial services, advertising, healthcare, manufacturing, retail and e-commerce, telecommunications, IT, transportation and logistics. 

Another point that has been uncovered in the survey is that business leaders are taking decisions on sharing and selling data without involving the information security professionals. This is business with respect to the data being taken without the experts’ opinion or without the experts being involved in the process. A clear indication of poor implementation of the security policies that organizations have.