The Ponemon Institute has released the “Consumer's Report Card on Data Breach Notification.” This study of 1,795 people indicated that 31 percent said they terminated their relationship with the organization after learning that their personal information may have been released as a result of a data breach. 26 percent of respondents took no action after being notified and 57 percent said they lost trust and confidence in the organization.
Other key findings are:
§ 63 percent of survey respondents said notification letters they received offered no direction on the steps the consumer should take to protect their personal information;
§ 55 percent of respondents had been notified of two or more data breaches in the previous 24 months;
§ More than 55 percent of respondents state that the notification about the data breach occurred more than one month after the incident;
§ More than 50 percent of respondents rated the timeliness, clarity, and quality of the notification as either fair or poor;
§ Less than one-third of respondents said that the organization offered services to protect them from further harms; of those who opted into such services, 97 percent rated them good to excellent; and
Two percent of respondents that had been notified of a data breach experienced identity theft as a result of the breach, while 64 percent were unsure if they were a victim of identity theft.
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