A new survey of thousands of Americans commissioned by Cape and independently conducted by The Harris Poll finds that most Americans trust mobile devices and use them for sensitive communications, while demonstrating a lack of knowledge about common phone network security and privacy risks.
The Harris Poll surveyed over 2,000 adults in the United States aged 18 and over in October 2025. Survey findings found that many Americans both significantly rely on and trust existing mobile communication channels. Among others:
- 81% of Americans trust phone calls for sensitive communication, while 76% say the same for SMS and 74% for voicemail.
- Baby Boomers trust phone calls for sensitive conversations more often than younger generations (86% vs. 79% of Gen Z vs. 78% of Millennials).
- Baby Boomers also rely on phone calls more overall; 38% say phone calls are their primary communication method compared to 23% of Gen Z and 28% of Millennials.
- 78% percent of Americans rely on either phone calls or SMS as the primary way they communicate with friends and family.
- Phone calls are used most often for communications with healthcare providers (48%), financial institutions (38%), and for parents of children under 18, schools, and daycares (38%).
- About another one in ten prefer SMS for these sensitive interactions (11% healthcare providers, 11% financial institutions, 9% schools and daycares).
At the same time, few Americans expressed awareness of the privacy and security risks of mobile devices and mainstream communications pathways.
- Fewer than one-third of Americans believe they have given carriers permission to share their location, browsing behavior, or demographic information, even though such collection is typically on by default unless consumers proactively opt out.
- 63% of Americans say it is easy to opt out of carrier data sharing, even though carrier transparency reports show opt-out rates below 1%.
- 59% of Americans don’t know that disabling location settings does not prevent all forms of location tracking, while 37% believe this stops tracking entirely, even though it does not.
- 71% agree that consumers need to accept risks to their privacy when using mobile devices, and 59% believe that what mobile service providers do with personal and usage data is beyond consumers’ control. At the same time, 80% of Americans believe they can protect their privacy by actively managing their device settings.
- 41% don’t know that mobile service providers can share personal information, such as contact information and usage data, with other companies for marketing and other purposes.
The survey results underscore that many Americans continue to depend upon phones and phone networks for sensitive activities—such as banking or medical communications made over phone calls or multi-factor authentication via SMS codes—while overestimating the privacy and security of those phone networks and the extent to which their activities may be vulnerable.
It’s a critical paradox at the heart of Americans’ use of mobile devices. Americans depend on them, including their phone call and SMS functions, for sensitive communications, yet don’t feel they can control what mobile carriers do with their data. They believe that device settings and opt-outs help them to protect their privacy, yet don’t always exercise those features and have serious knowledge gaps about cybersecurity flaws, data-collection and -sharing practices, and other privacy and security risks pervasive in mobile carriers and devices.
But, perhaps most promising of all, some Americans do still care about their data—and many are interested in more secure, privacy-protective options for the communication systems that we use every day.
