Online survey finds respondents blame telecom firms, banks for data breach

Most people share their financial data share their financial information with multiple organisations: from companies to the government

Almost 41 per cent of people whose personal data was compromised blame their telecom or banking service providers, said an online survey on Sunday.

The survey by Local Circles, a community social media platform, found that most citizens share their personal financial data, like their PAN card number, with multiple entities like banks, telecom companies, loan or insurance agencies, digital payment apps, hotels, airlines and government offices.

While 41 per cent of citizens feel that the data was compromised by their telecom or banking service providers, about 33 per cent couldn’t figure out how their data got compromised.

The findings indicate that the problem of personal data breach may be much larger in magnitude and the majority aren’t even aware that their personal data has been breached. The Personal Data Protection Bill had proposed penalties for such data breach and proposed a data regulator to handle all complaints, said the survey. It is yet to get Parliament’s approval.

The survey received more than 20,500 responses from citizens residing in 337 districts of India. 66 per cent of the respondents were men while 34 per cent were women. 45 per cent respondents were from tier 1, 32 per cent from tier 2 and 23 per cent respondents were from tier 3, 4 and rural districts.

Banks

86%

Mobile Services provider

58%

Loan or insurance agencies

54%

Digital Payments Apps

46%

Govt Offices

63%

CA/lawyer

60%

Airline, hotels etc

37%

All sorts of businesses and people

30%