42 per cent trust their doctor, 36 per cent their bank and 23 per cent the Government, research finds.

The majority of Brits are extremely unwilling to trust any third party with their personal data. Around a third of the population say they are unwilling to share personal data, such as age and address, with any third party at all and only four in ten say they trust their doctor/health service with their private information, research by Pitney Bowes finds.

Banks are the second most trusted organisation, after doctors and health services, but still only get a vote of confidence from 36 per cent of Brits. Consumers have marginally more trust in Government than online retailers (30 per cent and 27 per cent respectively) and the least trusted organisations are fitness centers (13 per cent).

Surprisingly, given the importance of customer data to this sector, retail loyalty programs garner little trust as well with a mere 15 per cent.

Pitney Bowes’ marketing director Phil Hutchison, warned that this may be in response to businesses deluging customers with data requests and adopting an over-familiar tone in communications: "Statistics show that even the most basic form of personalisation substantially increases response rates, it’s not surprising that marketers are hungry for more and more personal data. There is an opportunity, but only for those companies which get communication right."

The survey shows there is a clear line between what is seen as personal data and what is ‘private information’. It is the minority of respondents who are unwilling to give basic transactional data details, such as date of birth (10 per cent), postal address (13 per cent) or email (14 per cent). However, the trust line is crossed when these consumers are asked about private issues such as their sexual preference (45 per cent), religion (71 per cent) or political persuasion (76 per cent).

"Customers are likely to be wary of agreeing to information requests that they don’t understand. If a retail loyalty scheme starts asking you for your height and weight, or a bank asks about your family structure you can only wonder why!", concludes Hutchison.