Citizens Willing to Share Personal Data with Government in Exchange for Enhanced Customer Services, Accenture Survey Finds

The majority of citizens are willing to share personal information with government agencies in exchange for better service, according to a global study issued today by Accenture (NYSE: ACN).

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The study — based on a survey of more than 6,500 respondents across 11 countries in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific — found that just two-fifths (41%) of respondents were satisfied with the level of interaction received from government departments over the last year, and more than half (58%) said they are not aware of a way to share service-related feedback with government agencies.

Despite those findings, the vast majority (84%) of respondents said they are open to sharing their personally identifiable information with a government department in exchange for a more personalized customer service experience. Additionally, two-fifths (41%) of respondents said they would be comfortable with their personal information being shared between government agencies if it would enhance customer service.

“In recent years governments have taken positive steps to secure and protect citizen and organizational data. However, corresponding regulatory measures have at times also prevented government agencies from using customer data in innovative ways to enhance customer service. A solution would be to ask for citizen consent, allowing for citizens to opt-in to new data-sharing programs across government agencies,” said Eyal Darmon, a managing director in Accenture’s Health & Public Service practice and sponsor of the study.

More than three-fourths (78%) of citizens said they see benefits to using virtual agents — artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled customer-service assistants or chatbots — to receive services from government agencies, and almost half (47%) said they would like to complete some transactions using virtual agents. Additionally, half (50%) of respondents said they believe their query could be resolved in the shortest possible time using a virtual agent, and a similar number (49%) anticipated benefits from the “24/7” access to government services. Two in five (41%) respondents said the use of virtual agents would reduce their need to wait for a human customer service agent to become available to assist them.