Commercial Risk Europe: Firms must brace for consumer data requests in early days of GDPR

04 May 2018

About half of UK consumers will request their personal information from companies within the first six months of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming into force, over concerns about how their data is stored and protected, according to new research from Veritas.

In a survey of 3,000 respondents, Veritas found that cross-sector, 40% of consumers plan to exercise their GDPR rights to request data on them held by companies. This number rises to 56% for financial services firms, followed by social media companies at 48% and retailers at 46%.

Of those consumers that said they would exercise their data rights, 65% said they would request access to their personal data, while 71% said they would exercise their right to be forgotten under the new regulation that takes effect later this month.

Some 47% said they will request personal data or request that data is deleted under the right to be forgotten, if a company that holds their personal information suffers a data breach.

More than half of consumers surveyed (56%) said they are uncomfortable with their personal data sat on systems over which they have no control. The same percentage said they want a better understanding of the personal information companies hold on them.

Some 37% of consumers said they would seek to request information from companies because they do not trust them to protect their personal data. Just over a quarter (27%) said they will use their rights under GDPR to test whether businesses understand the value of consumer rights. A further 8% said they would exercise their right, simply to irritate a company.

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