A recent finding by McAfee reveals that Indian women outrank men in sharing intimate texts, emails or photos and filming sexual video content
For a second year in a row, McAfee examined how Indian consumers are sharing and storing intimate data on their mobile devices, especially with current or former significant others. The study highlights how sharing personal content such as suggestive texts, naked photos, suggestive video and passcodes on these devices can potentially lead to cyber-stalking and the exposure of private content leaking online.
An important finding was that Indian women outrank Indian men in sending personal or intimate text messages, emails or photos (59 per cent) and filming sexual video content (30 per cent). Sharing content on social media — posting photos (72 per cent), online messages (62 per cent), posting videos (35 per cent) — to celebrate Valentine’s day is the new norm.
Some of the other India data points are that 90 per cent of women in the age group of 18-24 were found to have received personal or intimate text messages, emails or photos on their mobile device out of the 67 per cent polled respondents. While sharing content, more than half of the polled Indians send sexts or sexually explicit text messages (79 per cent) or personal or intimate text messages, emails or photos (70 per cent) to their friends.
“The indiscriminate usage of mobile phones to share photos and videos reiterate the realities of digital privacy—or lack thereof,” said Rupa Roy, marketing head, India and SAARC, McAfee. “Ultimately, users are increasing the risks of these photos becoming public and possibly jeopardising their identity. It is critical therefore to take proactive measures to make sure their personal data is safe and secure.” she added.
The finding revealed that almost half of the polled Indians (48 per cent) also share bank account details with their partners. In a similar survey done by McAfee in 2013 on the same topic, it was found that 63 per cent of the polled Indians shared bank account details with partners online and on the phone. The same stands for passwords of emails and social networking accounts. Conversely, those who shared their passwords with an ex were cautious enough to change the password when they break-up (89 per cent).
It also emerged that one third of the Indian respondents (68 per cent), have checked their partner’s mobiles to check out their messages and photos and that 44 per cent of people admitted to cyber stalking or following their significant other’s ex on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. In terms of spying on the partner, out of 96 per cent of surveyed Indians who are on Facebook, 31 per cent check their partner’s activities by logging into their partner’s profile. Forty three per cent of Indian respondents track their partner’s ex on Facebook and misuse of partner’s risqué images post break-up. Also, of the surveyed Indians, 28 per cent respondents have had an ex who threatened to release their risqué images online but did not go through with it. While 17 per cent have had an ex who carried out the threat.
Cyber stalking is another thing many respondents admitted to. Interestingly, it’s majorly ‘women’ who carry out the above mentioned revengeful acts — which is mostly because their partner cheated on them (47 per cent).