Smartphone Users More Worried About Leaked Bank Details Than Nudes

People across the world would prefer someone to access their own racy photos rather than their financial information, according to a new survey by Avast.

The recent study by the security company looks at people’s attitudes to their smartphone privacy, and what type of content they think of as most personal.

To do this, the security company gathered responses from Avast customers in 11 countries.

In terms of the level of concern people have about other people accessing their personal data, almost all said they were worried, with averages ranging from 90.6% in Brazil, to 68% in Czech Republic.

And in terms of who they were most worried might get access to their phone, cybercriminals were most likely to come out top.

However despite this, countries like Argentina, Brazil, France, India and Russia ranked mothers as the person they were most worried might access their phone.

In France, more than half of smartphone users ranked their mother first as the person they would least like to access their phone, with India and Brazil following with more than 40%.

In terms of the precautions taken to protect their devices, Avast interestingly found that well under half of users in the UK, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina lock their phone with a PIN.

The country with the biggest average of people who lock their phone was Spain with 87.6%, followed by Germany at 79.8% and France at 79.6%.

And in terms of the most sensitive information someone could potentially access, nearly all countries said “financial information, like credit card details” was the worst thing that could be accessed.

However in terms of personal information, text messages were widely regarded as the most personal data someone could access from their smartphone device.

And when asked about racy or nude photos, while people in the UK and the US said they were very careful about storing private or racy photos on their devices, people in Spain, France and the Czech Republic said they do this fairly openly.

But when asked if they would prefer if someone could access their nude photos or bank account information, Avast interestingly found that in all countries, the vast majority said it would be less painful to have someone access nude photos.

In conclusion, Avast said: “This survey and research data suggests that while people are very concerned about their privacy, they aren’t taking too many steps to protect themselves. For example, across the world, more than 40% of smartphone users don’t even take the simple step of locking their phones from prying eyes.

“In addition, people claim to be more concerned about losing their banking data, but when given the choice, many more of them lock their photo apps instead of their banking apps. As is common with many situations, when asked, we give the answers we are supposed to give, but we don’t necessarily live by our answers.”

Check out the full data here.