Majority of the U.S. consumers do not want U.S. companies to share their personal information with the overseas outsourcing service providers, finds a study by Ponemon Institute, a Michigan-headquartered information-management services provider.

About 51% of the respondents expressed their negative opinion about the transfer of personal information such as the social-security number outside the U.S., while about 60% of the respondents stated their reservations against the offshoring of information like credit and debit cards numbers. About 73% voted against sharing of their banking or home mortgage information, while about 83% expressed their negative opinion about their health records being shared with offshore outsourcing service providers.

According to the study, about 73% of the respondents stated their unwillingness to pay higher prices for the products and services to ensure their personal information is not offshored. In addition, about 82% of the respondents expressed an opinion that new regulations are needed in the U.S. to ensure that offshore companies have adequate security and privacy safeguards in place.

Canada, Ireland and India received the topmost rankings for the trust pertaining to the adequacy of steps that overseas companies are taking to safeguard their personal information while Philippines, Mexico, Haiti and Russia received the least rankings.

The study is based on the responses of 1,294 respondents from the U.S., and was commissioned by White & Case, a New York-headquartered legal services provider.