Gathering self-incriminating data is always difficult, as most don’t want to tell they did something bad, so it’s expected that the numbers of those that actually took data are higher than were admitted.
But even working with these numbers, we can spot an increase in those that “would take data when leaving” over the last couple of years. In SailPoint’s 2010 study, 22 percent of British employees said they would, compared to 31 percent in our latest study. So, what we have now is about a third of people who do not approve of stealing data from a company versus another third that would do it. Digging deeper into the demographics of the survey reveals other interesting details, but this part should be taken a bit more lightly, as several of these sub-statistic results had under 50 answers, which would tend to have a larger margin of error, and could cause subjective understanding of the results.
Females appear to be either less likely to steal data, or lie about it better than men as only 1 percent admitted to having taken data, compared to 7 percent of men. Intriguing indeed, particularly as the “would take data when leaving” answer difference was much smaller, with women at 29 percent and men at 33 percent. The youngest age group 16-24 seemed to have most integrity, with 26 percent that would and 3 percent having taken data, while the 45-54 age group don’t want to take any chances when switching jobs, as 35 percent would and 5 percent did take it.
A look at the regional statistics is also interesting. The North East and Yorkshire seem most honest, as 26 percent would take the data, but none actually did, followed closely by the Welsh, where the same percentage would, and 4 percent say they did. The other side of the coin is the North West, as there 38 percent would and 6 percent did take the data. The highest percentage of those who do not approve of such actions was scored by Scotland and Wales, with 38 percent, and the lowest was in the South east of England, with 23 percent.
Every company would have to evaluate for themselves, what their contact lists of customers or partners mean to them and whether it can be damaging to them if they end up in unauthorised hands. In many cases customer lists can fall under the legislation of existing data protection and privacy laws and regulations, so their loss could put a company in legal difficulties, while the upcoming EU data breach legislation will also require companies to monitor and report data loss incidents.
