A new HP study confirms device screen creeping and peeking in office print trays is human nature. And while most people may not be stealing our data outright, is there a new type of “hacker” we need to protect against? HP surveyed general consumers and office workers across Canada, the UK and the United States to find out.

Key Findings:

• Feeling somewhat paranoid, consumers don’t feel free to use their devices the way they want, with 8 in 10 admitting they restrict the content they look at in public and look at others’ screens without their knowledge.
• Don’t count on privacy in the workplace –office workers creep and peek at an alarming rate. 4 in 5 creep on their coworkers’ screens, and 3 in 4 peek at unclaimed documents they find left in the office printer tray.
• Screen creeping is driven by curiosity—but for some, it goes much deeper than that. While few do so with malicious intent, 1 in 5 say they creep when they could gain something from it.

THE SURVEY

HOW THE SURVEY WORKED

In this survey, we set out to uncover secret behaviors of consumers to better understand today’s top privacy concerns and motivation behind why people “creep” on laptop screens and “peek” at documents found in printer trays. As part of this worldwide study, we asked 3,000 of the general population and 1,500 office workers across Canada, the UK and the United States, to further analyze whether our human behavior impacts both business and personal decisions. With questions ranging from, “how likely are you to look at your neighbor’s laptop screen while on a flight?” to “what have you done with unclaimed papers found or left in printer trays?,” the results confirm it’s difficult for most of us to look the other way, when given the opportunity.