We are increasingly aware that our personal data is a valuable commodity 鈥� but just how valuable? A survey has revealed that many of us will part with sensitive information for fairly small sums.
Scott Wallsten of the Technology Policy Institute, a Washington DC-based think tank, and Jeffrey Prince of Indiana University how much they would need to be paid in exchange for allowing ongoing access to their personal data.
While participants demanded the most money 鈥� an average $8.44 per month 鈥� to give access to their bank balance, people also valued their fingerprints.
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People across the US, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina and Germany wanted an average of $7.56 per month to share this biometric data. Those over the age of 45 valued their biometric data twice as much as those under the age of 45. 鈥淚t makes sense people care about biometrics,鈥� says Wallsten. 鈥淚f you lose your fingerprint data, you can鈥檛 get another fingerprint.鈥�
Despite it being a common privacy concern, people were less worried about sharing their location, asking for just $1.82 per month on average. 鈥淚t鈥檚 possible people are thinking about the benefits of sharing their location data, whereas the other benefits aren鈥檛 immediately apparent,鈥� says Wallsten.
One of the most surprising findings was that people in the Latin American countries surveyed would be willing to pay, rather than be paid, to receive ads. 鈥淧eople generally didn鈥檛 mind too much getting ads,鈥� says Wallsten.
The research helps quantify the value people have on their data, says Jesse Blumenthal of the Internet Law & Policy Foundry in Washington DC. 鈥淲e often tend to have privacy debates in the abstract or based on absolutist statements,鈥� he says. 鈥淭his helps us weigh a cost-benefit analysis of privacy rules and regulations.鈥�
