31/7/2001

" 'Its none of their business', that's what survey respondents said when they were asked why they didn't want to provide organisations with different types of their personal information" said the Federal Privacy Commissioner, Malcolm Crompton today. He was launching three major pieces of research commissioned by his Office on Australians and privacy. "59% of respondents felt this way regarding income, and 80% regarding health information. This shows Australians regard privacy as a closely held and highly personal value" said Mr Crompton.

Copies of the reports in various formats are available @ http://www.privacy.gov.au/aboutprivacy/attitudes#1.1

"But Australians are willing to strike a balance", said the Commissioner. "In the right circumstances, 43% of respondents said that they would be willing to provide personal details in return for more efficient and personalised services". "81% agreed that it was appropriate for the government to assign unique identifiers to better track health services, but 60% of respondents qualified this by saying that inclusion in a national database should be voluntary.

"Respondents look for signals that an organisation will manage their personal information well. "59% said they would trust an organisation more if that organisation gave them control over how their information was to be used, 55% said that organisations with privacy policies would be more likely to gain their trust" said Mr Crompton.

"More than 40% of respondents said they had refused to deal with organisations because of concerns over the use and protection of their personal information" said Mr Crompton. "Significantly 14% of respondents said they had decided not to deal with government organisations because of privacy concerns.

"Australians rank respect for personal information equal first with quality of product or service" said the Commissioner. "Our survey is the first to ask people to assess whether respect for personal information ranks against fulfilment measures such as quality of product, or efficiency of service, price or convenience.

"Business is taking this message on board", said Mr Crompton. "95% of business respondents said they considered the privacy of customers' personal information to be a very important or important issue for their organisations. 80% of business respondents said that their business was dependent on their ability to protect and responsibly use their customers' personal information" said the Commissioner.

"Encouragingly 19% of business respondents said they had started preparing for the legislation. Nonetheless, business responses suggest that there are some knowledge gaps that need to be filled", said the Commissioner. "Less than 40% of respondents were aware of which organisations were covered by the new privacy law.

"This information should be highly valuable to Business and Government agencies in developing their approach to customer service, and in managing their public relations" said Mr Crompton. "Trust is integral to business relationships with clients, and this survey tells us that in order to gain client trust, Business will need to put their customer in the driver's seat when it comes to customer information.

"Commonwealth agencies in responding to the survey showed a high level of support and knowledge in relation to privacy issues and legislation" said Mr Crompton. "Although they have been covered by the Privacy Act since 1988, this research gives us pointers as to issues to focus on in our ongoing work with Commonwealth agencies, most particularly, provision of services on-line, and contracting out.

The research findings are incorporated into three separate reports: Privacy and the Community; Privacy and Business; and Privacy and Government and are available on www.privacy.gov.au/reserach.index.html#1.1