Survey: HK folks stop shopping online due to data privacy concerns

Nearly half of consumers in Hong Kong have stopped browsing an online store, with over two-third of people worried about the excessive data collection of traders when they shop online, according to the latest survey of Hong Kong Consumer Council.

To comprehend consumers’ perception and usage habits of AI and data privacy, the Council conducted an online quantitative consumer survey with 1,219 respondents in Hong Kong aged 15 or above who have visited local or non-local online stores. 

The survey reflected consumers’ concerns and worries towards various issues such as personal data privacy, with 74% of the respondents said that they were worried about the excessive data collection of traders, while 72% were worried that if the AI algorithm goes wrong, no one will be responsible for the problems caused.

Notwithstanding consumers’ concerns about cybersecurity and privacy protection, they do not act cautiously in practice when shopping online. For instance, up to 60% of the respondents had never read privacy policies at online stores or simply did not know what privacy policies were, while the reasons for not reading the privacy policies included the content being too lengthy and wordy, being too hard to understand, or that the consumer believes that the online stores can gather their personal information online regardless of whether they read the privacy policies or not.

Amongst those who had read the privacy policies before, 43% of them had stopped browsing an online store, mainly because too much of their information would be gathered, too many third-party organisations would receive their personal data and the number of purposes for which their data was collected was excessive. 

Furthermore, when online stores display a pop-up message to obtain consent from consumers to collect their cookie information, 27% of the respondents would simply neglect these messages or just leave it there. Consumers also anticipated more information transparency and the choices to opt-in and opt-out. 78% hoped to be informed by traders when they are using AI to provide services, while 81% urged to have the right to opt for the use of AI tools.

The Council emphasises that to foster more cautious online shopping habits and thus to ensure consumers put their knowledge into practice and take cybersecurity measures to protect themselves, consumer education is indispensable. 77% of the respondents agreed that public education on AI should be strengthened and more information on AI should be provided.

The Study also examined consumers’ usage and satisfaction with four types of AI tools. In terms of usage, product recommendation had the highest usage rate (89%), followed by chatbots (75%), advanced biometrics (55%) and augmented reality (AR) (32%). Yet, when it came to consumer satisfaction, the two more popular AI tools had lower ratings, with only around half (56%) of the respondents happy with product recommendation, whereas chatbots had the lowest satisfaction with only 38% respondents deeming it useful for improving their online shopping experience, believed to be due to the chatbots’ inability to accurately address consumers’ questions.

Moreover, close to half (48%) of the respondents were particularly cautious about providing personal information when using chatbots, around 10% higher than the other three AI tools. In fact, it has become increasingly prevalent in recent years for traders to provide customer services with chatbots, as not only could it help them cut back on labour costs, but it could also provide 24/7 customer support. However, inaccurate answers from chatbots not only fail to solve the problem, but also largely discount the satisfaction of consumers. On the contrary, over 70% of the respondents were more satisfied with AR (74%) and advanced biometrics (73%) respectively, mainly attributed to the more stable performance, and more gratifying and authentic experience offered.

The study also found that consumer satisfaction and trust towards the overall adoption of AI tools and individual applications varied vastly. For example, only 31% of the respondents trusted AI, 41% agreed that AI addressed their needs accurately, whereas slightly more than half (57%) of the respondents agreed that AI helped reduce their time spent for choosing products.

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