With its “Love, Relationships and Technology” survey, security vendor McAfee Canada is warning amorous Canadians to be wary of sharing more than their hearts with their paramour.
The danger is, should the love die, you’ll find yourself wishing your ex didn’t have access to all that personal data. According to the study’s findings, 60 per cent of Canadian smartphone owners have personal and intimate information on their mobile devices, such as bank account information, passwords, credit cards and revealing photos, yet four out of 10 users do not have password protection on their devices. Not that your partner would snoop, of course.
However, according to Brenda Moretto, Canadian consumer sales manager for McAfee, people need to be more informed about the consequences of sharing so much private information with their partners and friends.
Sharing passwords might seem harmless, but it could and often does result in critical personal information falling into the wrong hands and landing in a public platform for all to see,” said Moretto, in a statement. “People need to be aware of the risks and take the steps to make sure their personal data is safe and secure.”
One thing to be wary of is sharing intimate or revealing photos with your partner or friends which, as McAfee notes, puts on at risk for a “revenge of the ex” scenario. According to the study, 97 per cent of Canadians believe their data and revealing photos are safe in the hands of their partners, but 10 per cent had their personal content leaked to others without their permission.
Of those respondents that exposed the personal content of their ex-partners, 60 per cent said they did it because their partners lied to them, 50 per cent because they cheated, and 10 per cent because they broke up.
Some 18 per cent of Canadians regretted sending such intimate content after a break up and 21 per cent even asked their ex-partner to delete all personal content. However, despite the risk, 23 per cent of Canadians still plan to send “sexy or romantic photos” to their partners via email, text and social media for Valentine’s Day.