By In the digital age, the right to privacy and the protection of information is becoming a prevalent issue. A recent online survey conducted by Ipsos on behalf of The Mozilla Foundation in September of this year found that people remain concerned about the right to privacy and the protection of information specifically with regards to apps designed to facilitate payments and the transaction information that is generated.
Ipsos September 2018 Survey
Ipsos, the independent market research company founded in 1975 is an international research group currently ranked 4th in the global research industry. Tasked by The Mozilla Foundation, Ipsos conducted its research on a random sample of people representative of the US population in order to obtain credible survey results. The sample consisted of 1,009 adults from the continental US, Alaska, and Hawaii with ages ranging from 18 and over.
The study found that apps involving the sending and receiving of money should not, by default, make transaction details public for anyone on the internet to see. Users wishing to make these details public would have to specifically change the settings/options of the app in order to do so. Transaction information contained in these apps include details of the transactions, namely who was paid, how much was paid, by who, for what and when.
Public Opinion
An overwhelming number of people, 9 out of 10 people surveyed, believe that transaction information should only be visible to those involved. The study found that the majority of people, 77% of the participants surveyed, do not believe that apps designed to facilitate payments should be able to make transaction details public. Adults of 55 years and older and adults with no children living at home were found to be highly likely to oppose these apps from being able to make transaction details available for anyone on the internet by default.
According to Chris Jackson, Vice President of the US Ipsos Public Affairs department, the justification by companies to automatically make transaction information public because “it’s fun to share [information] with friends in the social world” was widely rejected by 92% of survey participants. Although the majority of participants disagreed with this justification, women, and adults over the age of 55 were, in particular, as opposed to this view.
Notably, 89% of people surveyed believed that the default privacy setting for apps designed to facilitate payments should make transaction information visible to only those involved in the transaction. Conversely, only 7% of people believed that transaction information should be visible to people who are their ‘friends’ and an even lesser amount of people, only 4%, believed that transaction information should be visible to anyone on the internet. The minority opinion regarding the sharing of information among friends was predominantly held by men and young adults. Young adults were more likely to believe in sharing information with the public at large.
Right to Privacy and Protection of Information
The majority of the people surveyed do not believe that apps designed to facilitate payments should, by default, disclose the transaction details of individual users to the public. The people surveyed, in fact, overwhelmingly believed that their transaction information should be made available only to those involved in the transaction. Although companies may advocate for greater social networking and sharing on public platforms, the vast majority of people surveyed valued their right to privacy and wished to protect their information and the disclosure thereof.
Do you believe apps should share transaction details with anyone on the internet? Or is privacy a fallacy in the digital age? Give us your thoughts in the comments below.
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