Most Poles are aware that personal data is very valuable. In the last year, 66% of respondents did not share sensitive information about themselves in exchange for additional benefits. However, 18% of respondents did provide data, and 16% do not know or do not remember whether they did.
Young people are more willing to share data, older people are more cautious
The approach to identity protection is influenced by gender, age, education and place of residence. Men are less rigorous in this respect than women. In the last year, 20% of men shared personal data in exchange for additional benefits, compared to 16% of women. Much greater differences in this respect can be seen when taking into account age. While among representatives of the younger generations (aged 18–44), extra rewards encouraged 21–25% of respondents to share their data, older generations were much more reserved. Only 14% of respondents aged 45–64 decided to take such a step, and only 11% of seniors.
Interestingly, the least willing to provide personal data were people with primary and vocational education, as well as secondary, post-secondary and post-high school education (16% each). In contrast, 22% of respondents with a bachelor’s or master’s degree.
Greater caution also distinguishes respondents from the largest cities with more than 500,000 residents, of whom only 15% provided personal data. In contrast, 20% of respondents from cities with 21 to 100 thousand people.
Women prefer one-time discounts, men prefer permanent discounts
When analyzing the types of additional benefits that most often encouraged Poles to share personal data in the last year, permanent (35 percent of responses) or one-time (31 percent) discounts or rebates come to the fore. We are slightly less willing to share sensitive information about ourselves in exchange for a free product or service (27 percent), or the ability to use a free application or an online account (22 percent). The least attractive to respondents were also unique content (16 percent) and personalized offers tailored to their needs (15 percent).
Looking through the prism of the respondents’ gender, it is clear that men were more willing to provide their personal data for a permanent discount, while women did so more often for a one-time discount. In the first case, the difference between the sexes was 39 percent to 30 percent, and in the second 39 percent to 24 percent.
Email, name, phone number – what do we reveal most often?
People who were encouraged to disclose their personal data by additional benefits were most likely to provide: e-mail address (80%), name and surname (59%), telephone number (55%) and address of residence (33%). They were much less willing to provide PESEL (8%) and ID number (7%).
– If it is a special email address that we use, for example, only for shopping in stores or using services, then it is not a problem. It is worse if we use the same address every day and have provided it, for example, to a bank. If the email, name and phone number fall into the hands of cybercriminals as a result of a data leak, they may try to reset passwords and, using access recovery procedures, take over, for example, a bank account – warns Bartłomiej Drozd, an expert at ChronPESEL.pl.
The set: e-mail, name and phone number can also be used in phishing. Our e-mail address or phone number will receive personalized information pretending to be well-known institutions, such as banks, where we will be encouraged to reveal passwords or credit card numbers under various pretenses.
The PESEL number does not protect in every case
The fact that such a small percentage of respondents shared their PESEL should not be reassuring. It means that still, despite many years of educational campaigns conducted by, among others, the ChronPESEL.pl service, about 2.4 million adult Poles do not see the risks associated with sharing their PESEL if it is not necessary.
– We are afraid that the launch of the PESEL number restriction register may increase this percentage. Many people remember only that if they restrict their PESEL, no one will incur any liabilities on their account, so they will stop protecting it. This is a mistake, because restricting a PESEL protects only in a few cases, strictly defined in the act. You still have to be very careful – comments Bartłomiej Drozd.
The survey, commissioned by ChronPESEL.pl and the National Debt Register under the patronage of the Personal Data Protection Office (UODO), entitled “Are Poles ready to share personal data in exchange for additional benefits?”, was conducted in April 2024 using the CAWI method on a representative group of 1,016 respondents by IMAS International.