What do people want to hide on their smartphone?
More than half of Americans (52%) would be embarrassed about friends or family seeing certain files or documents on their smartphone, according to Clean Master.
The number one file American’s don’t want others to see on their smartphone isn’t porn or dirty pictures of themselves, but bank account information. 1 in 4 (25%) Americans don’t want that seen by others on their smartphone.
mails or texts written on a smartphone (24%) came in as a close second, followed by emails or texts received (23%), websites visited (15%), and porn (10%). 8% of Americans said they would be embarrassed about friends or family seeing naked selfies on their smartphone.
When asked who Americans most want to prevent from accessing files on their smartphone, friends rank #1 (22%), followed closely by children (21%) and co-workers (21%). Other choices include boss (18%), parents (12%), and spouse or significant other (12%), strangers (12%) and hackers/criminals (8%). Most Americans (81%) feel the need to keep files on their smartphone private.
The top reasons why include:
- One third of Americans (29%) fear it will get lost
- 28% fear it will get hacked
- 16% don’t have a security code to keep my phone private
- 6% share their phone with their friends
- 5% share their phone with their significant other
- 5% have naked photos of themselves on their phone
- 5% have naked photos of other people on their phone.
The survey also discovered that smartphone privacy concerns vary by gender, with men twice as likely as women to have naked photos of themselves on their phone (7% of men vs. 3% of women) and four times as likely to have naked photos of others (9% of men vs. 2% of women). Conversely, women are more likely than men to not have a security code to keep their phone private (19% women vs. 13% men). Additionally, men are more likely than women to be embarrassed about friends or family seeing the following content on their smartphone:
- Websites they have visited (20% men vs. 11% women)
- Porn (15% men vs. 5% women)
- Photos of others (13% men vs. 5% women)
- Videos of others (8% men vs. 3% women).
Geographic regions of the nation also demonstrated differences in smartphone privacy attitudes of Americans, with those who live in the South (7%) more likely than any other geographic division to need smartphone privacy because they have naked photos of themselves on their smartphone. Those in the South and West (7%) are more likely because they have naked photos of others.
Furthermore, out of more than half (58%) of American adults who have a smartphone, 1 in 4 (27%) feel the need to delete data or files to make storage space available, with 14% indicating they feel the need to do so, either very often or often.
The survey was conducted by TNS as a national poll of 1,000 U.S. adults.