People are willingly giving away personal details online despite the growing awareness of identity theft, AOL has found.

In a survey of 1,000 people the internet service provider (ISP) found that although eight in 10 people said they would not give away their income details online, in reality nine in 10 did without any pressure or persuasion.

Aol said this was because they often fell victim to cleverly worded adverts used to extract personal information.

The report also found just over a third of people expected to be defrauded when making an online credit card transaction even though only one in 10 had ever experienced it.

Jules Polonetsky, AOL’s chief privacy officer, said: “Our research identified a significant gap between what people say and what they do when it comes to protecting sensitive information online.”

It has launched an online privacy campaign that will explain how adverts can be worded to extract personal information from web users. People will also be shown how to avoid handing over personal details