Of course, it’s not like we didn’t warn you, but the fact is that users are carrying on with their bad habits when it comes to preserving their personal information. According to a recent study done by McAfee on Internet consumption habits, a worrying number of people use their smartphones for sharing private content, from photos and personal videos of a sexual nature to passwords or bank account details.
The study uses a sample population of 9,000 people from different countries and age brackets to evaluate their browsing habits regarding the nature of information being shared. The study has revealed some quite surprising data:
- 50% of users share photos and sexual videos of themselves with their partners or friends
- 38% share private logins and passwords
- 47% send emails with personal information
- 43% send bank account information
Now that Valentine’s Day is coming up, it’s a good time to reflect a bit on the information shared between couples. Twenty percent of those surveyed have gone into the Facebook account of their other half after having shared their passwords. Nobody’s trying to plan the end of their relationship, but let’s be realistic here: anything could happen in the future.
It’s precisely in the breakups that other revealing data can be discerned: 73% of those who leave a relationship change their online login details, while 30% spy on their exes on every social network they are one. Furthermore, some 37% of the broken-hearted ask their exes to take down “compromising” photos. If only they’d thought of that before!
If we look at local results, its seems in Spain they are more daring and dirty in general, since some 60% of those surveyed had shared sexual images and photos of themselves, although the large majority, fully 96%, think this information is in good hands since their partners would never publish it or share it with another person. But from what we’ve seen, we shouldn’t trust anyone.
