IoT Users Concerned over Privacy — Stats Galore Again
The Internet of Things (IoT) monster has taken the toll on the web users. Despite the fact that more than 60% of the internet users have shown concerned about their privacy, while using their smartphones, IoT is here to stay, and there is no denying the fact about it.
More than 60% of the mobile phone users around the world, (62% to be precise) are really concerned about their privacy. Meanwhile, the percentage of concerned privacy users increases to 72% when the sample size of the respondents is shrinked down to the United States only.
These statistics are taken from a research study that was recently conducted by Mobile Ecosystem Forum (MEF), an international trade organization, in collaboration with an online security firm, AVG. The sample size of the survey consisted of 5,200 respondents from various countries including Brazil, the US, India, China, France, Germany, the UK, and South Africa.
According to the survey results, privacy was the factor that most of the mobile users were concerned about. 62% of the total number of respondents termed privacy as the main issue. Respondents from the US and France also held privacy as the major concern for mobile users with 70% and 69% response rate.
Security was yet again amongst the primary concerns faced by mobile users. With a global percentage of 54%, it ranked second behind privacy as one of the major concerns amongst the mobile phone users. One of the most surprising factors that the respondents of the survey quoted as an important threat to them was that of ‘physical security’. Well that’s really an interesting statistic. How can IoT affect the physical security of a smartphone user?
It is a fact that mobile applications also tend to affect the internet privacy of users. More than 30% of the US respondents (36% to be precise) have shown concerns about the invasion of IoT on their homes. Users also showed concerns about the devices connected to the internet. More than 20% of the respondents (24% to be precise), held the point of view that health-related information is the most important information which they tend to share their personal information with the hospitals in the US for the sake of maintaining medical records.
By the end of year 2016, the number of internet-connected devices in use will rise to 6.4 billion, a surge of 30% from the last year 2015. With the continuing surge in the use of internet-connected devices, the number is going to increase to 20.4 billion in the 2020. Now, that’s a huge number.
