A company’s ability to keep data safe can directly affect whether customers trust the organization and remain loyal over time. According to Shred-it’s 2021 Data Protection Report, more than 8 out of 10 consumers decide which companies to do business with based on their reputation for information security. In part, this is because consumers feel less confident about the security of their personal data than they did a decade ago — and they have reason to feel this way. Nearly 70% of consumers surveyed have been personally impacted by a data breach in 2021 as compared to 53% in 2020.
Unfortunately, consumers tend to have low confidence when it comes to businesses and data security. One in three consumers believe that companies fall short in terms of timely, transparent communications around data leaks, and there is a general perception that these incidents only come to light when the company gets caught or is forced to reveal the event.