There were similar concerns about safety when entering card details on the phone in public where other people can see.

TRUSTe’s online survey of 2,006 adults found that 88% of British internet users worry about online privacy – this is largely unchanged from the 2012 survey when the total was 90%.

Similarly, 43% of users do not trust companies with their personal information (up 6% on 2012) while 91% of respondents said that they avoided doing business with companies they don’t believe protect their privacy.

Online shopping proved to be the activity that consumers are most concerned about, with 88% worried about their privacy, followed by the use of social media (86%).

Interestingly, 40% of online shoppers admitted to be being ‘frequently’ or ‘always’ concerned about their privacy.

The survey also found that 84% of online banking customers have privacy concerns, as well as 80% of those who used mobile apps and 76% of those who use email.

Nearly all British internet users (96%) want the ability to control who can collect their personal information and who can track their activities online.

This is now a legal requirement under the EU Cookie Directive; however according to a previous TRUSTe report just 12% of the UK’s top 50 websites had taken steps to comply with the law.

But that hasn’t led to a flurry of enforcement action by the Information Commissioner’s Office – six months after the deadline it had received just 550 complaints from web users and had written to just 174 companies as a result.