Trust in organisation to store data

Q. Under national security laws, phone and internet records of all Australians are held for two years. How much trust do you have in the following organisations to store your personal data safely and in a way that would prevent abuse?

	Total lot/some trust	Total little/no trust		A lot of trust	Some trust	Little trust	No trust	Don’t know	A lot/some trust (Oct 2015)	A lot/some trust (Nov 2014)
Security agencies such as the Australian Federal Police, local police and ASIO	64%	32%		21%	43%	20%	12%	5%	49%	53%
The Government	43%	52%		9%	34%	31%	21%	5%	40%	42%
Telecommunications companies and internet service providers	29%	67%		4%	25%	36%	31%	4%	31%	32%
Other private companies	24%	69%		2%	22%	35%	34%	7%	20%	20%

 

64% have a lot or some trust in security agencies to store personal data safely and in a way that would prevent abuse – a 15% increase from when this question was last asked in October 2015. For each other organisations, a majority had little or no trust.

Overall, trust has increased for most organisations since this question was asked in 2015, with the exception of telecommunication companies and ISPs, for whom trust fell 2% to 29%.

Note: When these questions were asked in 2015 and 2014, they referred to ‘new national security laws’, rather than ‘national security laws’, and said that data “will be held for two years”, rather than “are held for two years”. This wording has been changed to reflect that the laws have now come into effect.