Internet users in the UK are becoming more and more reluctant to share their profiles with others as they are becoming aware of the fact that revelation of personal details could be risky, a study by Ofcom said.

In a survey of 1,824 people, the media watchdog found that 80 per cent of respondents saying that they would allow only their friends and family members to see their social networking profiles as compared with 48 per cent in
2007.

Forty-four per cent of respondents said they would be happy to provide their e-mail address, down from 49 per cent in 2007.

However, the percentage of UK adults with social networking profile jumped from 22 per cent in 2007 to settle at 44 per cent in 2009.

The survey also said that 20 per cent of internet users still trust that search results always provide correct and unbiased information, which is not true. Twenty-three per cent of the respondents showed no interest in installing security features, despite users are becoming more aware of the fact that their personal information could be misused by online miscreants.

Internet users in Scotland were found to be the most relaxed regarding security issue. About 50 per cent of the polled people in Scotland said they were comfortable giving their addresses online as compared with 25 per cent in Northern Ireland.