Australians have their say about privacy

The 2026 Australian Community Attitudes to Privacy survey results are out, and the message is clear: privacy matters more than ever. A whopping 87% of respondents said they were more concerned about their privacy than they were five years ago.

View the full report on the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner’s website, or check out this useful survey infographic explaining some of the key findings.

The survey, which was conducted in March this year, asked a nationally representative sample of 1500 adults about their attitudes and experiences of privacy.

Here are some key findings:

• Privacy is a priority - 93% of respondents said that protecting privacy was important to them.
• Rising concerns – 73% had experienced a privacy concern in the past 12 months, up from 64% in 2023.
• Scams and spam surge – 70% reported more scams and spam, up from 55% in 2023.
• High expectations - 98% said they expected organisations to minimise privacy risks when collecting, using or sharing personal information.
• Privacy policies ignored - 69% said they always or often agreed to privacy policies without reading most or all of them. This group is more likely to feel that consent or sharing personal information is rarely or never a real choice and that they have little or no control over how their data is collected and used.
• Trust shifts – Trust of health service providers (74%, also at 74% in 2023 and 70% in 2020) and government agencies (68%, up from 67% in 2023 and 51% in 2020) remained highest, but levels have fallen across insurance, telecommunications, technology, retail and real estate sectors since 2023. Trust levels were lowest for social media companies (3%), data brokers (4%) and AI companies (4%).