Even After NSA Leaks, Government Still Trusted Over Private Firms

cold fjord writes "Computing reports on a U.K. survey: 'Governments remain the organizations most trusted by the public to handle personal data, despite revelations about surveillance and data collection schemes by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), the U.K.'s GCHQ and other governmental organizations around the world. That's according to research by accounting and consultancy firm Ernst & Young, which suggests that more than half of people — 55 per cent — say they're comfortable sharing personal information with central government organizations ... However, consumers are more wary about sharing their data with private companies. Just one-third told Ernst & Young that they're willing to share personal information with financial institutions, while one-quarter are happy to do so when it comes to their energy provider. Only one-fifth of those surveyed said they're comfortable sharing personal data with supermarkets. ... it was web firms that people were most claimed to be wary of sharing information with — fewer than one-in-10 said they were comfortable about sharing data with social networks, such as Facebook or web search engines like Google.'" Meanwhile, a pair of researchers have assessed the NSA's data gathering scheme and found, unsurprisingly, that it's probably not very cost effective (PDF). "Conceivably, as some maintain, there still exist some exceptionally dim-witted terrorists or would-be terrorists who are oblivious to the fact that their communications are rather less than fully secure. But such supreme knuckle-heads are surely likely to make so many mistakes — like advertising on Facebook or searching there or in chatrooms for co-conspirators — that sophisticated and costly communications data banks are scarcely needed to track them down."

Comments

Gov personal information vs spy drag net?

[AHuxley]

Thats some interesting take on everyday legal gov use vs a vast domestic surveillance network.
People are happy too or have to interact with "central government organisations, such as HM Revenue & Customs and the NHS"
Kind of hard not to pay your tax, collect a pension, apply for benefits (e.g. help with heating bills), enjoy the benefits of the National Health Service.
Energy provider - again kind of hard not to pay your bill, seek a better rate.
Supermarkets - people do enjoy their rewards, discounts.
Thanks to Snowden and many other whistleblowers like him the UK can now more fully understand how their everyday net usage and other databases can be combined under sigint development.
Sigint development seems new from around 1994 via Ripa for 'targeted surveillance" now moving on as Tempora and Prism.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jun/21/legal-loopholes-gchq-spy-world
We do recall http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempora ?
The UK is now waking up to the reality of the "five eyes" sharing, along with a few nations who are extra good friends of the US, contractors, ex and former UK staff, ex and former UK contractors, ex and former five eyes staff and contractors...
Thats a lot of people with insight into junk GCHQ/NSA encryption standards, the telco systems and national databases...
So enjoy your http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/25/leaked-memos-gchq-mass-surveillance-secret-snowden
"GCHQ lobbied furiously to keep secret the fact that telecoms firms had gone "well beyond" what they were legally required to do to help intelligence agencies"
"GCHQ feared a legal challenge under the right to privacy in the Human Rights Act if evidence of its surveillance methods became admissible in court."
"GCHQ assisted the Home Office in lining up sympathetic people to help with "press handling"" - nice to have skilled sock puppets - just like we see on slashdot :)