About 84% of Indians prefer firms that protect personal data: Survey

In the digital age, protection of personal data is not only necessary but a matter of serious concern. Data collected by OpenText briefs that almost a quarter of Indians do not trust in the ability of third-party organisations to keep their personal information safe or private.

New Delhi:Almost 84 per cent of Indian consumers would pay more to do business with an organisation that is committed to protecting their data privacy, surpassing the UK (49 per cent), Germany (41 per cent), Spain (36 per cent) and France (17 per cent), said a new report.

The new data from Canada-based information management solutions company OpenText based on a survey of 6,000 Indian respondents highlights public uncertainty and distrust around how organisations handle their data.

Almost a quarter of Indians do not trust in the ability of third-party organisations to keep their personal information safe or private, showed the results.

The survey results come at a time when there is no comprehensive data privacy law in place in the country and India is rapidly going digital.

While a majority (78 per cent) of Indian consumers broadly know how many organisations use, store or have access to their personal data (e.g. email address, contact number, bank details etc.), 22 per cent still "don't have a clue" about it.

"The Covid-19 crisis has accelerated the pace of digital transformation, as companies have moved to remote work and digital customer experiences," said Lou Blatt, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at OpenText.

"Digital is now central to almost every business interaction -- generating more data for companies to manage and secure. This shift coupled with increased consumer data privacy expectations means organisations are now under pressure to ensure that their data privacy solutions can scale appropriately for this digital-first era."

Furthermore, three in ten Indians said they only have a vague idea of the laws that protect their personal data -- compared to UK (36 per cent), Germany (32 per cent), Spain (40 per cent) and France (30 per cent).

The majority of Indians (61 per cent) confirmed that they are very aware of these regulations.

In fact, 31 per cent of the respondents said that they would proactively get in touch with an organisation to see how it is using their personal data or to check if it is being stored in a compliant manner.

Almost half of the respondents have already done so at least once, said the report.

(Inputs from IANS)