Accountability of Business and Government

'The New Zealand public is asking that business and government be held to account for breaches of the Privacy Act,' said Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff.

In a UMR survey released today, 88% of respondents said they wanted businesses punished if they misuse people's personal information. The vast majority of respondents, 97%, also said the Privacy Commissioner should have power to stop a company breaching the Privacy Act.

'Government agencies can also take no comfort from the survey results,' said Marie Shroff. Eighty-two percent of survey respondents were worried about government silently sharing their personal information. Concern about health sector organisations sharing people's personal information without telling them nearly doubled from 32% to 60%. This result may have been influenced by the events surrounding the recent ACC disclosure of a spreadsheet of information about 6,700 claimants.

'But there is also some reasonably good news for government and business,' said Marie Shroff. Around three-fifths of New Zealanders trust agencies to protect their personal information, with 65% trusting business and 68% trusting government to handle their personal information well. But a relatively high proportion of the public are neutral (22% about business and 17% about government) - many people are effectively withholding their judgment on agencies' standards of protection of information.

General Concerns about Data Protection and Privacy

'Overall this survey tells us that New Zealanders have big worries about protecting their personal information and privacy especially in the digital environment,' said Marie Shroff. General concern about privacy in the last 10 years has risen to 67% (up from 47% in 2001). Discomfort with personal information handling by government and business continues to track at a high level (80-90%).

'What are people saying through this poll?' asked Ms Shroff. 'They want to hold organisations to account if they cause harm through misuse of personal information. They are also asking government and business to protect personal information properly, be up front about how it's used, and tell people immediately if their information is lost or stolen.'

ENDS

Notes for editors:

- The poll was a telephone survey by UMR of 750 New Zealanders 18 years of age and older, conducted from 22 to 27 March 2012.

- The margin of error for sample size of 750 for a 50% figure at the '95% confidence level' is +/-3.6%.

- Media coverage of the ACC privacy incident (first published on 15 March 2012) may have affected poll results for some questions. Field work dates for the poll were fixed before the ACC story broke.

See the survey results and the table of results.

For further information contact Cathy Henry on 021 509 735.