Survey: Retailers Weak on Protecting Customer Data

 

March 12, 2007 -- Most consumers don't trust retailers to protect their credit and debit card account information, a recent national study found.

Of 1,200 cardholders surveyed last month, 63 percent said retailers were the least secure of all the businesses that handled credit and debit card data, according to Javelin Strategy & Research, a San Francisco-based firm.

Retailers ranked behind payment-processing firms, credit-card firms, and banks, the survey found.

A full 85 percent said they would shop more frequently at a store that safeguarded their account information, while 95 percent said they wanted to know the name of a retailer after being alerted of a data breach by their bank, the survey found.

"Clearly, companies with poor data-security practices are placing their reputation with their customers at risk," James Van Dyke, the head of research at Javelin, said in a statement.

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