Edelman, the world’s largest public relations firm, has just released the Edelman Privacy Risk Index℠ (ePRI), a global study that helps businesses and organizations make sense of data security and privacy risks, enabling them to understand their impact on corporate reputation, and to better address customer concerns.
“The Edelman Privacy Risk Index findings shine a light on the worrying void between business’ privacy practices and consumer expectations about how their personal data is handled. From a communications and stakeholder engagement point of view, what is most concerning is the lack of clarity and transparency about these practices,” explained Pete Pedersen, global chair, Technology practice, Edelman.The study was conducted by the Ponemon Institute, and surveyed 6,400 corporate privacy and security executives, from 29 countries around the world. The results revealed that most businesses are unprepared to meet customer and regulator expectations around privacy and data security:
- 57% of respondents believe that their organizations do not consider privacy and the protection of personal information to be a corporate priority;
- 62% say their organizations do not have the expertise, training or technology, to protect personal information;
- 55% complained about lack of adequate resources;
- 57% believe their companies are not transparent about what they do with employee and customer information;
- and 61% businesses are slow to respond to consumer and regulator complaints about privacy.
