2019 Eye On Privacy Report – MediaPRO

eye on privacy

The MediaPRO’s 2019 Eye on Privacy Report presents advice and information on the way that privacy professionals can create an effective privacy awareness training programs to ensure employees will be engaged in the process.

More than 1,000 US employees were surveyed to get answers regarding data privacy practices, threats to sensitive data, access to data and knowledge of privacy regulations and guidelines.

Main findings from this survey include:

  • Overall, respondents from the survey were familiar with which types of information needed to be handled securely and which did not require it. 59% of employees decided to shred a photocopy of a former employee’s driver licence, which is the best option according to the personally identifiable information found. Similarly, when asked how to handle a project proposal for a new client, 49% of employees selected “store securely” as their answer, which is also the best option out of the four given to them.
  • Generally, respondents believed that Social Security Numbers were the most sensitive information, followed by credit card information and tax information. Social media posts were rated as the least sensitive information.
  • Surveyed employees were most cautious when allowing apps to read and change their contacts with 40% of them felt least comfortable with this permission, followed by permission to access browser history and to take pictures and video. People were most comfortable when giving permission to access their device calendar. Younger people tend to be more comfortable to share their device location compared to older respondents.
  • When asked how familiar they are with some of the most common privacy regulations and guidelines, people knew least about PCI standard, while they confirmed to be most familiar with HIPPA.
  • In general, 66% of employees believed that businesses communicating data breaches to impacted individuals was the most important data privacy practice. Other effective procedures include the ability to opt-out of having personal data sold to other third parties and the opportunity to change or delete personal data when required.
  • When given several scenarios to decide which should be reported as a potential privacy incident, survey respondents were quite well-informed with 85% of them correctly decided to report cybercriminals stealing information and 77% would report when security software on a shared computer had been disabled.
  • Cybercriminals stealing login details was rated as the most serious risk to data privacy, followed by disgruntled employee releasing or stealing data and phishing emails delivering malware.

MediaPRO provides security and privacy training solutions for organizations to protect their data and reduce the risk to their reputation and bottom line.

Full report here.