Indians love their smart devices but don't trust them yet

As the Internet of Things inches its way into daily life, Indian consumers seem conflicted about the trade-offs among privacy, security and convenience factors. Apart from the initial paranoia of ‘help, the machines are taking over’, it’s the data privacy issues that have left consumers slightly doubtful of this emerging technology. According to a survey by ISACA, a global association of 110,000 IT security, assurance, governance and risk professionals, 88 percent of Indians are concerned that their information will be stolen online. This would seem slightly hypocritical considering 50 percent reuse the same two to three passwords across multiple online accounts. More than one-third (35 percent) of Indians have used a family member’s name as a password and 31 percent have used a significant date such as a wedding, anniversary or birthday—all of which can be guessed easily and may create security issues as consumers begin using an increasing number of Internet-connected devices. [caption id=“attachment_1219953” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image of a smart device. AFP[/caption] Consumers have already have started seeing glimpses of how Internet of Things has infiltrated their lives with GPS navigation systems (51 percent), Samsung or Apple smart TVs (38 percent) or smart watches (20 percent). They have seen how it benefits daily life by saving time, constant connectivity and the ability to share and track information. Despite that, only half of the respondents of the survey felt that the benefits outweigh the risks.

Amongst the risks, it’s the ‘someone will hack into the device and do something malicious’ worry that plagues the consumer’s mind. The survey found 32 percent of consumers are worried that companies/organisations will use information collected by the device to market to them or will just sell the information to other companies. There is also a level of disparity in the institutions that consumers would trust with the data collected from devices. While 25 percent don’t trust any of them, 18 percent say they would trust all of them. Only 16 percent said they would trust the federal government and 12 percent their mobile service providers. Only 7 percent and 6 percent of the respondents said they would trust their utility company and their doctor respectively with the data from devices. It may seem that Indians are unsure of where their data lies. But the survey highlighted that Indians do take more precautions with their data than consumers in the other countries surveyed do. Most (65 percent) Indians always or sometimes read privacy policies when downloading apps, and 72 percent read policies when registering on websites. In comparison, 50 percent of US consumers read privacy policies when downloading apps. Additionally, 85 percent of Indian consumers have checked the privacy settings on their social media profiles in the past six months, compared to 75 percent of US respondents. In India, 75 percent of consumers believe they have control over who has access to their information, compared to 62 percent in the US. The survey also found that 72 percent of Indians polled believe they have control over how websites use their information, compared to 50 percent in the US.