Q. The Government has indicated that it intends to place more pressure in Internet Service Providers to stop file sharing, including potentially cutting off internet connections to their customers who illegally download files. Do you support such measures?

42% opposed and 38% supported measures to stop illegal file sharing.

Those more likely to oppose these measures were Greens voters (61%), Labor voters (52%) aged 18-34 (52%) and university educated (46%).

Those more likely to support these measures were Liberal/National voters (53%) and aged 55+ (49%).

Q. How much trust do you have in the following groups to protect your privacy?

Over half of people have no trust in Facebook (57%) or Twitter (55%) to protect their privacy. Just under half have no trust in the US government to protect their privacy (43%).

Very few people (13% or less) have a ‘lot of trust’ in the organisations listed to protect their privacy.

Just 41% of people have a lot/some trust in the Australian government to protect their privacy.

Those aged 18-24 (42%) and 25-34 (44%) were less likely to have no trust in Facebook. While those aged 35-44 (60%), 45-54 (66%), 55-64 (62%) and 65+ (63%) were more likely to have ‘no trust’.

The same theme was repeated for Twitter, with those aged 18-24 (31%) and 25-34 (45%) being less likely than those aged 35-44 (58%), 45-54 (63%), 55-64 (64%) and 65+ (63%) to have ‘no trust’.

Liberal/National voters were more likely to have a lot/some trust in the Australian government to protect their privacy (54%). Labor (33%) voters were less likely to have a lot/some trust in the Australian Government to protect their privacy.

Q. The Government has recently proposed a number of amendments to the laws governing surveillance and intelligence-gathering. Do you support or oppose the following suggestions?

A majority of respondents were opposed to making it an offence not to assist government agencies with decryption e.g. reveal your password (60%), requiring internet service providers to keep a record of every customers’ internet usage for 2 years (57%) and allowing ASIO agents to plant or destroy material on computers if they have a warrant (52%).

They were more evenly divided over enabling government agencies to intercept messages on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook (40% support/46% oppose) and extending the power of government agencies to intercept communications from major to lesser offences (40% support/37% oppose).