US consumers still cautious about data breaches and privacy

According to a survey conducted by Feedzai, consumers are willing to give a financial institution access to their personal data in exchange for protection. Almost one-fourth (23%) of Americans would allow a financial institution access to their social network account, 29% would give access to online activity, and nearly one-third would give access to their mobile phone data (31%) in exchange for protecting their personal financial information from being stolen. Women are more likely than men to hold their data close to their chest.

Men, specifically, are more willing than women to share their mobile data (34% versus 28%), online activity (32% versus 26%) and social networks (26% versus 20%). Overall, in all three categories, 27% of males would be willing to give up their data versus 19% of women. Almost half of males age 35-44 (45%) would allow institutions access to online activity, but only about a quarter of females the same age would do so (27%).

77% of consumers said they have not changed their shopping behavior as a result of recent data breaches. Over half of consumers indicated data breaches are to be expected as part of the experience of shopping with credit/debit cards (56%).

Findings also indicate that, while cash was once king and Americans believe it is the safest way to make a purchase, fewer are using cash in 2015. Over half of Americans believe cash is the safest way to purchase something (55%) while only one in five (22%) believe paying with credit cards is safest. However, only 36% of consumers said they are using cash for more of their purchases in light of data breaches. More than half of Americans (56%) still think it is safer to use credit cards in physical stores than online when shopping. In the Midwest the number spikes to 64%.