A majority of French consumers are concerned about the protection of their personal data. This is the conclusion of a study carried out by Odoxa for the company Oracle, an American giant which offers services in the cloud, relayed by The Computer World. The institute conducted its survey via a questionnaire in February 2022 distributed to 1,005 adults.
Only 21% of French people trust social networks
The protection of personal data is at the heart of concerns in Europe. The application of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is bearing fruit. European regulators have already imposed fines on Meta, Amazon and IAB Europe. In France, the CNIL has put Google Analytics on notice for an illegal transfer of European data to the United States.
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The actions taken by data protection authorities prove that the problem is important. The French are concerned about these issues, as shown by the Odoxa study. Three quarters of respondents, 76%, are concerned about the protection of their personal data.
Asked about the trust they place in the many services they use in daily newspapers, 77% of French consumers believe that banks effectively preserve their data. They feel especially concerned by the risk of misappropriation of banking information at 86% and identity theft at 81%.
On the other hand, they are a minority to believe that tech companies properly secure personal data. They are 49% to trust e-commerce sites, 40% to giants like Google or Microsoft and only 21% think that their data is safe on social networks.
The risk of cyberattack on a national scale worries
Even if the French do not blindly trust the entities that store their data, they do not always put the means in place to protect themselves. Although 81% say they use complex passwords, only 64% of 18-24 year olds who grew up with the internet do so. They are also 59% to reuse the same identifiers several times. Surprisingly, those over 65, who were not born with the Internet, are more vigilant. They are only 26% to use the same password several times.
The French still try to minimize certain risks: to make purchases online, 87% use double authentication and 83% place orders only on sites they know. More worryingly, 60% of consumers do not pay attention to the presence of the https protocol, visible in the URL.
Regarding other concerns, against which the French can hardly protect themselves, they are 77% to think that the risk of cyberattack on the scale of France is high. Only 40% of respondents believe that France is capable of protecting itself against this type of attack.
In a context of war in Ukraine, cyberattacks are more and more numerous. Last March, the National Agency for Security and Computer Systems (ANSSI) warned of the significant risk of attack for companies. An attack had also hit Emmanuel Macron’s campaign site in April, proof that anyone can be targeted.