A new report by Ernst & Young’s has revealed that businesses can expect to find a customer data drought over the coming years as customers become increasingly wary of divulging information.

The report by Ernst & Young’s, entitled ‘The Big Data Backlash’ report, found that consumers were less willing to share personal information, with 55 per cent providing less information than five years ago, and 49 per cent predicting that they will restrict open information by 2018.

The report identified new legislation such as the Data Protection Act and media coverage of mass security service observation for a more cautious approach to personal data management.

While consumers were moving to restrict data, the report revealed that 62 per cent of businesses surveyed, employed customer data collection programmes to drive growth, with 87 per cent of these, saying they saw increased revenues as a result of this practice.

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