Banking is the industry consumers trust most with their personal data, but that trust is thin: only 44% of consumers name banking as their most-trusted sector, according to Thales's 2025 Digital Trust Index, a survey of 14,009 consumers across 14 countries published in March 2025. Government and healthcare follow close behind, and every other industry falls off sharply from there. Not a single one of the 13 sectors Thales ranked reached majority trust.
Which industries do consumers trust most with personal data?
Banking leads the 2025 ranking at 44%, followed by government at 41% and healthcare at 40%. Insurance is a distant fourth at 24%, and trust drops into single digits by the time the ranking reaches hospitality, retail, and entertainment. Thales frames this as evidence that regulation correlates with trust: banking, government, and healthcare are the three most heavily regulated sectors in the survey, and they are also the only three sectors that cleared 40%.
Figure 1: Share of consumers naming each sector as the one they trust most with personal data. Source: Thales, 2025 Digital Trust Index.
Government also improved year over year, rising from 37% in 2024 to 41% in 2025 (a separate executive-summary figure in the same report rounds this to 42%) and becoming the only sector to gain ground. Everywhere else, trust held flat or declined, which is why Thales describes 2025 as a year of broad, not isolated, erosion.
Does trust in banking change with a consumer's age?
Yes, and the gap is large. Consumers aged 55 and older are the most likely age group to name banking as their most-trusted sector, at 51%, compared with just 32% of consumers aged 16 to 24, a 19-point spread. Trust in banking climbs steadily at every age bracket in between: 39% for ages 25 to 34, 43% for 35 to 44, and 44% for 45 to 54.
Figure 2: Share of each age group naming banking as the sector they trust most with personal data. Source: Thales, 2025 Digital Trust Index.
Younger consumers do not simply distrust every institution equally: Thales found that consumers aged 16 to 24 are more likely to name government and healthcare, both at 35%, as their most-trusted sector than banking. For a fuller view of how these age and generational patterns play out across other privacy metrics, see our compilation of data privacy statistics for 2026.
Why are consumers abandoning brands over data practices?
82% of consumers worldwide say they have abandoned a brand relationship entirely in the past 12 months, a figure that helps explain why trust scores stay so low even among the leading sectors. Demanding too much personal information is the single most common trigger, cited by 31% of consumers, ahead of poor online support at 27%.
The consequences of that distrust are not abstract. Nearly one in five consumers, 19%, say they were informed their personal data had been compromised in the past year, and the financial fallout from that kind of exposure can be significant; see our breakdown of the average cost per identity theft victim for what that risk looks like in dollar terms.
Consumers also describe the current arrangement as one-sided. 37% say they feel forced to share their data because there is no real alternative if they want to use a service at all, and 63% say brands put too much of the responsibility for protecting that data back onto the individual rather than building in safeguards themselves. Those numbers help explain why demanding too much personal information, not a data breach, is the top reason consumers give for walking away from a brand: the breakdown below shows the full set of reasons behind the 82% abandonment figure, ranked by how often each one was cited.
Figure 3: Top reasons consumers gave for abandoning a brand in the past 12 months (respondents could select more than one reason). Source: Thales, 2025 Digital Trust Index.
Concerns about how personal information is used sit close behind at 25%, tied with a long sign-up process, which suggests friction and privacy worries carry roughly equal weight in a consumer's decision to walk away.
How much privacy protection do consumers expect from companies?
86% of consumers expect some level of privacy rights from the companies they interact with online, a figure that has held above four in five for several years running. At the same time, 63% of consumers believe brands put too much of the burden for data protection onto the consumer, and 37% say they feel forced to share their data with no real alternative.
Figure 4: Share of consumers who expect some level of privacy rights from the companies they interact with online. Source: Thales, 2025 Digital Trust Index.
Meeting that 86% expectation starts with a privacy policy that plainly states what data a site collects and why it is needed. A privacy policy generator built for current disclosure requirements keeps that language accurate as consumer expectations keep climbing.
How does every ranked sector compare?
| Rank | Sector | Trust score (2025) | Change vs. 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Banking | 44% | Held steady |
| 2 | Government | 41% | Up from 37% |
| 3 | Healthcare | 40% | Roughly flat |
| 4 | Insurance | 24% | Roughly flat |
| 5 | Education | 17% | Declined |
| 6 | Hospitality | 7% | Declined |
| 7 | Transportation | 6% | Declined |
| 8 | Retail | 5% | Declined |
| 8 | Entertainment | 5% | Declined |
| 9 | Social media | 4% | Declined |
| 9 | Automotive | 4% | Declined |
| 9 | Logistics | 4% | Declined |
| 10 | News media | 3% | Declined |
Source: Thales, 2025 Digital Trust Index. "Change vs. 2024" reflects Thales's own year-over-year categorization; only banking, government, and insurance avoided an outright decline.
Country-level results shift this picture further. Trust in government reaches 67% in Singapore and 58% in the UAE, while in the United States healthcare narrowly leads at 41% and government trust sits well below the global average at 29%.
The Bottom Line
44% trust in the leading sector, banking, is not a strong number on its own, but it looks even weaker next to what comes after it: a steep drop to government and healthcare in the low 40s, then a collapse into single digits for most other industries. The pattern points to regulation as the strongest predictor of consumer trust, since the three most heavily regulated sectors in the survey are also the only three above 40%. For a site owner, the practical signal is the same regardless of industry: 82% of consumers have already walked away from a brand over data practices once, and the fastest way to avoid becoming that statistic is a privacy policy that says plainly what data gets collected, why, and what a visitor can do about it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which industry do consumers trust most with personal data? Banking, with 44% of consumers naming it the sector they trust most with personal data, according to Thales's 2025 Digital Trust Index of 14,009 consumers across 14 countries. No sector cleared 50% trust.
Which industry is trusted least with personal data? News media organizations rank last at just 3% trust, the lowest of the 13 sectors Thales ranked in its 2025 Digital Trust Index, behind even automotive and social media companies, which tied at 4%.
Does trust in banking change with a consumer's age? Yes. 51% of consumers aged 55 and older say they trust banking most with their data, compared with just 32% of those aged 16 to 24, a 19-point gap, per Thales's 2025 Digital Trust Index.
How many consumers have abandoned a brand over data or privacy concerns? 82% of consumers globally have abandoned a brand relationship in the past 12 months, and demanding too much personal information is the single biggest reason, cited by 31%, according to Thales's 2025 Digital Trust Index.
Where the Numbers Come From
- Thales. (2025). "2025 Digital Trust Index: Understanding How Digital Experiences Affect Consumer Trust." Endorsed by KuppingerCole; fielded among 14,009 consumers across 14 countries, published March 2025. Primary source for every sector-ranking, age-breakdown, and brand-abandonment figure in this post.
- Businesswire. (2025). "Global Trust in Digital Services Declines, Finds Thales." Press release, March 18, 2025, confirming survey methodology and headline findings.
- Pew Research Center. (2023). "How Americans View Data Privacy." Survey of 5,101 U.S. adults, fielded May 2023, cited here only for broader context: roughly one-in-five Americans said they were confident their personal information would be treated responsibly, an older but directionally consistent benchmark against Thales's 2025 sector figures.
Note: All figures verified as of October 2026 against Thales's 2025 Digital Trust Index, the most recent edition published at the time of writing. Sector trust rankings are refreshed roughly once a year as Thales fields each new edition of the survey.
