Pew released new data showing a significant increase in the number of internet users who say they have had important personal information stolen as a result of their online activities:
18% of internet users have had important personal information stolen as a result of their online activities — such as their Social Security Number, their credit card information, or bank account information. That is an increase from 11% who said that last year.
The growing impact of data breaches reached across all demographic groups and the largest increases came among those ages 18-29 and among those ages 50-64.
In addition, 21% have had an online account compromised, such as a social networking account or an email account.
These findings come from a poll of 1,002 adults in January, so they emerged before the most recent revelations about the Heartbleed security flaw. In the sample 820 adults are internet users and the margin of error on that cohort is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Further details about our findings are available here.
Stephen
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