The UK is a nation of eshoppers

PEOPLE IN THE UK are adopting information technologies at a faster rate than their global peers and are willing to compromise their own privacy to do so.

According to a study by KPMG, UK consumers and businesses are keen shoppers, but are also keenly aware that they might be being tracked and followed around their online shopping sprees.

The KPMG report, "The Converged Lifestyle", looks at consumer attitudes to their personal devices and finds that whatever hardware they buy, all consumers want to do is get what they want, when they want it and where they want it, in KPMG's words.

This gimme-gimme attitude is countered with an increased awareness of security and privacy that appears to have no influence at all on shopping habits.

"The survey reveals that consumers around the globe adopt new technologies at a rapid pace and at the same time are increasingly willing to accept their data to be tracked if they get something in return," said Tudor Aw, KPMG's European head of technology.

"However, the report also shows that consumers' concerns over privacy and data security have increased over the last few years and companies across all sectors need to take this concern seriously. Whether its retailers or banks, consumers want transparency as to what companies do about data security and they want third parties to certify this security."

Just under half of respondents said that they would allow their online usage patterns and personal profiles to be used by advertisers, if it would give them access to free content or low cost offers. Around the same number said that they had already accepted such a trade-off.

Surprisingly, UK net users are less likely to embrace online and mobile banking - possibly because they don't want to see what they are spending - and only 27 per cent said that they had used such services in the last year. Globally this figure was just over half of respondents.

There are concerns about mobile phone use and security, which again might explain the reluctance to bank online, and two-thirds of people said that they were worried that their credit card information might be intercepted, or that unauthorised parties could access personally identifiable information from online transactions.

This might, but probably does not, explain why UK users are reluctant to pay for mobile apps. KPMG found that 88 per cent of respondents admitted downloading apps, but found that 38 per cent of them got them for free. Again there are security worries, and almost half of all respondents cited a very high level of concern regarding security and privacy. µ