Is it any surprise that most people don't trust the government with their data?
The Pew Research Center released a new study on Thursday that explores which institutes and businesses Americans trust the most.
First off, it appears that Americans put a lot of emphasis on their personal information. 93 percent of Americans expressed that being in control of who can get information about them is important to them. 90 percent of Americans said that controlling what information is collected about them is important.
Government overreach also appears to be a major concern, as 65 percent of Americans do not believe there are sufficient limits on "what telephone and Internet data the government can collect" as part of anti-terrorism efforts. In contrast, only 31 percent of Americans believe that these limits are good enough.
But which institutes are they most worried about? 54 percent of Americans are not confident that government agencies will keep their data private and secure. However, that's on the high side of the trust rating. Americans were (in general) less trusting of their email, cell phone, video and social media providers than government agencies.
In general, there were very few Americans who were "very confident" in a particular group or company's ability to keep user data safe. The group with the highest "very confident" score was your credit card company at 9 percent. That seems really high, considering the prevalence of credit card scams.
