Viber, one of the world’s leading apps for free and easy communication, unveils the results of its global in-app voluntary poll in which approximately 340,000 people took part, revealing 86% of Viber users in Nepal say digital privacy is very important for them.
As the COVID-19 crisis continues to accelerate the digitisation of many aspects of life, from education to work to healthcare, people are turning to apps and digital formats to stay connected to family members, friends, and colleagues. Rakuten Viber’s recent poll underscores that through the transformation, data privacy is still top of mind for its users.
Out of the regions participating in the survey; which included Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia Pacific, the poll reflected that Nepal is among the countries most concerned with digital privacy.
Features with private communication and end-to-end encryption by default are most important to Nepali users. Out of five different options, 67% of respondents said that their top priority is making sure their conversations remain private. The second most-voted-on feature, which received 19% votes, is to have custom solutions on what data to be shared with others in and out of the app. This was followed by respondents who marked making sure user data isn’t shared or collected by the company beyond what is needed for operating the app is important to them.
Viber’s private calls and chats are end-to-end encrypted. No one can join or be invited to group chats without permission. In addition, Viber also offers another layer of privacy with its hidden chats feature, which can only be accessed with a PIN.
Furthermore, 75% of the respondents in Nepal state that they would switch their messaging app due to any privacy concerns. Which speaks by itself that users take privacy really seriously and it is vital for them.
“This survey shows us and the rest of the world that privacy should never take a back seat to features in times of growing concern for surveillance of private communication for profit,” says Djamel Agaoua, Rakuten Viber CEO. “Because data privacy is top of mind for our users, it is also one of our main concerns, and we will continue to provide people across the globe a safe communication platform to host their conversations.”
