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2020 biennial survey on privacy - results

Concern

  • Just over half of respondents were concerned about an individual’s privacy and the protection of personal information, a slight drop from 2018’s survey.
  • Fifty-two percent of respondents outlined that they have become more concerned about an individual’s privacy and the protection of personal information over the last few years.
  • Respondents were most concerned about unauthorised sharing their personal information by businesses, theft of their banking details, and security of their personal information online.

Knowledge

  • Declared awareness of the Privacy Commissioner and the Privacy Act was at seventy-three percent and eighty-one percent respectively. Digital privacy was mostly framed by respondents as meaning their activity and information online was secure, particularly personal and financial details, and that they could control the way in which their data would be used.
  • About half of respondents followed privacy news ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ closely – a similar result to the US.

Personal data

  • There were low levels of agreement over issues regarding personal data safety, in particular feeling in control of how businesses were using personal information. This topic also brought about a sixty-five percent majority who wanted more government regulation on how companies could use customers’ personal data.
  • At sixty percent, there was a slim majority in those who feel they understand privacy laws and regulations, however this is a notably larger proportion than in the US, at thirty-six percent.

About the survey

Results in this report are based upon questions asked in the UMR Research nation wide omnibus survey. This is an online survey of a nationally representative sample of 1,398 New Zealanders 18 years of age and over.

  • Fieldwork for the latest online survey was conducted between 31 st of March and the 13th of April 2020.
  • The margin of error for a sample size of 1,398 for a 50 percent figure at the 95 percent confidence level is 3.1 percent after weighting.
  • Prior to 2018, some results were based on questions asked in a telephone survey of a nationally representative sample of New Zealanders 18 years of age and over.

Read a copy of the survey results: privacy concerns and sharing data (opens to PDF, 989 KB)

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