83 per cent of British adults are uneasy about sharing information with public sector organisations

A third of concerns raised by the 2017 NHS ransomware attack

Ahead of the introduction of new GDPR legislation which will punish businesses for poor data protection, new research has revealed just how little trust consumers have for public sector online services and use of their data.

A survey of 500 UK adults, commissioned by Probrand.co.uk, and published in the Public & Private Sector Services Audit revealed that 83 per cent of British adults are uneasy about sharing their information with the servers or websites of public sector organisations in particular.

The research revealed that 1 in 3 (34%) began harbouring these concerns following the 2017 NHS ransomware attack in 2017 which saw thousands of appointments cancelled.

The research found that the British public has less faith in some public sector organisations than others, with the security of the National Health Service (NHS) systems raising the biggest concern for 87 per cent of people.

Of those respondents who said they had worries about cyber security within the NHS, 34 per cent stated they were ‘very concerned’ about this.

85 per cent of the population said they were concerned about the security of data held by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) which can include everything from income tax records to child benefit information meanwhile, 81 per cent are worried about the data held about them by local government websites and servers.