Encryption Viewed As Positive in the United States
March 17 2016 - 7:35AM
Business Wire
ZixCorp looks to answer the question: Do
people in the United States associate encryption with security? 72
percent say yes.
A newly released survey by email data protection company Zix
Corporation (ZixCorp), (NASDAQ: ZIXI), sheds light on how
people in the United States view encryption. The
Qualtrics-conducted study, which surveyed more than 500 people in
the United States over the age of 18, revealed that the
overwhelming majority view encryption as positive. When asked what
word they would most associate with encryption, 72 percent of
respondents chose “security,” while 24 percent chose “privacy” and
only 4 percent chose “threat.”
In recent months, the national debate between government and
tech giants around the topic of encryption and backdoors into the
technology has been heated. With this highly publicized debate
playing out on the nightly news and presidential debates, it’s no
surprise that a majority of survey respondents (42 percent)
selected media coverage as the factor that most influenced their
views on encryption, while 28 percent cited personal experience, 16
percent cited personal research, and 14 percent cited experience at
work.
An overwhelming majority of respondents (95 percent) believe
that their sensitive information should be encrypted online. But
interestingly, to the question, have you ever used encryption, 43
percent answered no and 25 percent said they weren’t sure. Only 32
percent said yes, they had used encryption.
“As the debate regarding encryption and backdoors continues,
it’s interesting to see how the public perceives the technology –
especially with the amount of coverage it’s currently receiving in
the media,” said David Wagner, CEO of ZixCorp. “We are pleased the
majority of people surveyed view encryption in a positive light and
recognize its association with security. As a provider of email
data protection for more than 15 years, we understand backdoors in
any encryption technology only expose and hurt the consumers and
businesses that encryption is meant to protect. We strongly
advocate the use of encryption with frontdoors for protecting
business communication and encourage more people to research how
encryption properly guards their data, lives and community on a
daily basis.”
Frontdoors exist within encryption technology and enable
businesses to comply with legal proceedings and government search
warrants without weakening encryption algorithms for exploitation
by hackers and criminals.
Additional findings from the survey include:
- 75 percent of respondents said they
provide sensitive information (credit card, address, Social
Security number) when online for such tasks as shopping, banking or
emailing
- When asked what adjective best
describes encryption, 79 percent said “secure,” 16 percent said
“complicated,” and 5 percent said “frightening”
- 88 percent of respondents said they
believe their healthcare provider has taken the proper steps to
protect their medical information, with 12 percent saying no
For additional commentary on the survey, please visit
www.zixcorp.com/2016-encryption-survey-blog. To learn more about
Zix® Email Data Protection, visit http://www.zixcorp.com.
About Zix Corporation
ZixCorp is a leader in email data protection. ZixCorp offers
industry-leading email encryption, a unique email DLP solution and
an innovative email BYOD solution to meet your company’s data
protection and compliance needs. ZixCorp is trusted by the nation’s
most influential institutions in healthcare, finance and government
for easy-to-use secure email solutions. ZixCorp is publicly traded
on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol ZIXI, and its
headquarters are in Dallas, Texas. For more information, visit
www.zixcorp.com.
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version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160317005236/en/
ZixCorpPublic RelationsTaylor Stansbury Johnson,
214-370-2134tjohnson@zixcorp.com
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