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06/09/2026 6:20 pm
TL;DR: 97% of UAE residents are heavy digital users, yet 63% say they have already experienced hacking or data theft and 32% report direct financial consequences, underscoring a widening trust gap in digital services, according to Idemia. The practical issue for identity teams is that consumer security expectations are now part of authentication, verification, and fraud-control design, not a separate concern.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Idemia: UAE Consumers Among World’s Most Digitally Engaged Despite High Cybersecurity Concerns, Reveals IDEMIA Secure Transactions Study
By the numbers:
- 97% of UAE residents report high digital usage, showing near-universal engagement with online services.
- 63% of UAE residents have experienced hacking or data theft, compared with 38% globally.
- 32% say those incidents resulted in direct financial consequences, more than double the global average.
Questions worth separating out
A: Authentication should establish who the user is before any permission decision is made.
Q: Why does consumer perception of hacking matter for identity programmes?
A: Perception matters because users who believe hacking is common will judge identity controls by whether they feel protective, not just by whether they are technically sound.
Q: What do identity teams get wrong about strong customer verification?
A: Teams often optimise for assurance strength while ignoring whether the method is legible to the user.
Practitioner guidance
- Map customer trust points across the identity journey Identify where users form opinions about security during onboarding, authentication, payment approval, and account recovery.
- Calibrate step-up authentication by transaction risk Apply stronger authentication only where the payment value, account sensitivity, or behavioural anomaly warrants it.
- Align fraud and IAM ownership for shared identity flows Bring fraud operations, IAM, and digital product teams into the same control mapping so account recovery, payment approval, and identity verification do not create blind spots between teams.
What's in the full report
Idemia's full article covers the survey detail this post intentionally leaves at the analytical level:
- Country-by-country consumer response patterns across the 11-market survey, including the UAE subset
- The full set of trust and security preference questions around payments, authentication, and data theft
- The study's broader discussion of AI, quantum computing, and secure-by-design expectations in digital services
- Additional commentary from Idemia Secure Transactions on how trust is evolving in the digital economy
👉 Read Idemia's study on UAE consumer digital engagement and cybersecurity trust →
UAE digital adoption and cyber trust: what do IAM teams read into it?
Explore further
06/09/2026 6:21 pm
Consumer trust is now an identity control surface, not a marketing outcome. When users evaluate services through the lens of security, identity teams are responsible for the trust they create at login, payment, and verification. That shifts the debate from friction versus convenience to assurance versus abandonment. Practitioners should treat user trust as a measurable control objective, not an afterthought.
A question worth separating out:
Q: Should fraud, IAM, and digital product teams share ownership of customer trust controls?
A: Yes. Customer identity flows now span authentication, transaction risk, and recovery, so no single team owns the full trust experience. Shared governance helps close gaps between account protection and fraud response, especially where users judge security by whether the service remains usable and understandable.
👉 Read our full editorial: UAE digital adoption is outpacing consumer security trust
