National Consumer Protection Week has me thinking once again about they way consumer data is  handled by government agencies and businesses. It seems like we are asked to share or protect our sensitive data nearly every day. Just yesterday, I chose to share my credit card information with an online retailer and decided to shred a stack of old pay stubs that were printed with my Social Security number. These simple choices about who to trust and where our data is safe are made almost subconsciously.

Are you comfortable sharing your data with health care offices? Banks? Government agencies? Tax preparers? Credit card issuers? Relatives? Schools? Employers? These levels of trust can be hard to quantify. Luckily, we have the Pomenon Institute and their regular reports on consumer privacy and security trust to give us detailed insight.

Just this morning, the US Postal Service announced that they were once again named as the number one government agency Americans trust to protect their privacy. This is the third year that the Ponemon Institute study has given the US Postal Service the top spot. The report found that:

• The US Postal Service received an 83% trust approval rate and was one of only a few agencies able to improve their satisfaction and trust scores this year.
• The average trust score for the 60 government agencies included in the survey was 47%.

Those numbers are really impressive! The US Postal Service does do an excellent job of keeping our sensitive mail safe from tampering and delivered on time. And the US Postal Inspection Service does a lot to educate consumers about fraud and security.

Now let&39;s compare this to the trust levels reported for consumer banks. A 2006, Ponemon Institute report looked at privacy trust levels for retail banks in the US and found that:

• There has recently been an 8% decline in people who had "very high" levels of confidence in their banks since 2004.
• 12% of respondents said they received a privacy breach notification over the past 12 months. A major increase from 5% in 2004.
• 63% of consumers feel as safe banking online as in-person. This figure dropped 11% from 2003.

Those are some significant drops in consumer trust over the last few years. Frankly, it is not at all surprising with the recent attention given to data breaches at large financial institutions. Data breach cases in 2006 at Bank of America, Premier Bank, West Shore Bank, FirstBank, Sovereign Bank, US Bank, M&T Bank, Mercantile Potomac Bank, Wells Fargo and People&39;s Bank, have justified drops in consumer trust.

What do you think? Do you have more trust in the US Postal Service or your bank? Why? Share your feedback in the comments section below!