Consumers Say No to Apps Sharing Personal Info: Pew Survey

Smartphone app software developers beware — more than half of those that have downloaded your apps have uninstalled or outright avoided your wares due to privacy concerns, according to a recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project.

Here's the breakdown:

  • Of the roughly 88% of American adults who own cell phones, 43% say they have downloaded an app.
  • 54% of app users did not even consider installing an app when they discovered how much personal information they were sharing.
  • And 30% of those app users said 'fuggedaboutit' and uninstalled an app when they found out how much personal information they were handing over.
  • Overall, 57% of all users have either uninstalled or decided not to install an app that shows signs of over sharing.

Indeed, financial services executives are already hyper-aware of users' privacy concerns.
American Express is adamant that it has no plans of ever selling the data it collects from its digital wallet, Serve.

"You have to respect, and I think it's extremely important as a competitive differentiator to understand the privacy elements of, all this data and information," said Dan Schulman, Amex's group president of enterprise growth, in a recent interview with American Banker. "We expect that customers would expect American Express to add that higher level of security and privacy."

The survey reports results from interviews with 2,254 people 18 and older conducted this spring, according to a press release. The overall data has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4%.

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
Bank technology
MORE FROM AMERICAN BANKER