Privacy Commissioner - Te Mana Matapono Matatapu

Address by Privacy Commissioner during Privacy Awareness Week 2008

Auckland Chamber of Commerce Breakfast

Rendezvous Hotel - Monday 25 August 2008 at 8.00 am
                                                                                          

Introduction

• Welcome, Kia ora tatou

• It gives me great pleasure to be launching our second privacy awareness week 2008 – with our Asia-Pacific partners, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Korea and Macau.  We will also launch the opinion survey results; and employment booklet. 

• Thanks for getting out of bed early on this cold Monday morning!

• It’s worth it!  Because I believe you will hear about one of the major business and public issues of 21st century.

• When I came across from Secretary of the Cabinet I expected a relatively quiet time as Privacy Commissioner.

• Wrong!  Privacy/data protection has turned into one of the biggest issues of our time.

• Why?  In a word, technology.  Technology has generated the information century, the digital age and the information revolution.

• Think back only a few years – no Google, no email, no internet.  How things have changed – and will keep changing.

• Business and government gather, hold and use vast databases of information.

• Information is redefined as an asset, as the new currency of the 21st century.  Much of that information is personal, about you and me.

Scene setting – where privacy issues are at today for business
                                                                                  
• Your "Digital Shadow" - that is, all the digital information generated about the average person on a daily basis - now surpasses the amount of digital information individuals actively create themselves. New research shows the digital universe is bigger and growing more rapidly than original estimates as a result of fast growth in digital cameras, surveillance cameras, and digital televisions …. Other fast-growing corners of the digital universe include internet access in emerging countries, sensor-based applications, data centers supporting "cloud computing" and social networks comprised of digital content created by many millions of online users.

• The digital universe in 2007 was equal to almost 45 gigabytes (GB) of digital information for every person on earth - or the equivalent of over 17 billion, 8-GB iPhones.

• Social networking: The amount of personal information being collected by social networks soars at an enormous rate. MySpace claims more than 110 million accounts, while Facebook, its fast-growing rival, has some 64 million members. More than two billion videos are viewed monthly on YouTube.
 
• Use of databases – and they talk

• World map – growth of data protection and privacy authorities, activity at APEC, OECD, ISO

• Lots of online resources/journals
                              
• NZers are confident users of technology:
o 88% of households have a computer (BSA)
o 62% of children aged 6-13yrs use the internet.

• So why is this topic important to business and government?  Clearly it’s an area of huge opportunities for growth and development, both to facilitate existing, and generate new business opportunities; but it’s also an area of huge risks to business.

• Privacy is a fast-developing area and we are in the midst of an information revolution.

• Therefore – data protection and privacy have become a business issue – which can be a facilitator, an enhancer, an enabler, a market advantage – if you approach it right.  If not, it can be your downfall.  The Privacy Act provides some simple principles to guide you about collection, use and disclosure.  Mishandling or accidents with people’s information can cause loss of trust, branding damage and ultimately affect your bottom line.  Recent examples are: loss of UK benefit records; disclosure of Trade Me user details; attacks on online banking.

Launch of UMR privacy survey

How is all this viewed in New Zealand?

We run public opinion surveys, to help us to target our efforts.  I suggest these survey results are equally useful to you, whether you are in business, or service delivery, or government.  I will give highlights.  Much of interest in the detail. Full version available on our website.

• The previous UMR privacy survey was run in March 2006 (and Sept 2001).
• We plan to continue regular surveys in order to take the “privacy temperature” of New Zealanders.
• These results give some clear messages to both business and government.

General trends                                                                        
 
The results show that many New Zealanders have a strong and growing awareness of privacy and information technology issues. A third of people surveyed (32%) reported that they had become more concerned about issues of individual privacy and personal information in the last few years. 64% said their concern had stayed about the same.  Base levels of concern are between 50 – 57%.  Pacific Island and Maori respondents showed relatively higher levels of concern (46% and 40% respectively).  This is a consistent feature of our survey – similar levels recorded in 2001 and 2006.

Business
                                                                  
The survey results again showed high levels of concern about potential breaches of individual privacy by business. Ninety-percent (90%) of people said they were concerned (74% very concerned) if a business they didn’t know got hold of their personal information. This concern is reflected across all age groups, occupations, and personal income, and is demonstrated with great clarity in the ethnic breakdowns, where Pacific Island people and Maori expressed 100% and 93% concern respectively.  The lowest level of concern was among students (81%).
                                                                                                    
Eighty-six percent of respondents were concerned if information supplied to a business for one purpose was used for another purpose.             
                                                                                                    
A new question showed that New Zealanders are not necessarily comfortable with the globalisation of personal information. Eighty-one percent (81%) of respondents were concerned with their personal information being held by overseas businesses and, out of that number, 61% were very concerned. Concern was somewhat higher among women (85%) than men (77%).                                  

Trust           
                                                                              
Levels of trust in the way different organisations use and protect personal information vary widely. Health service providers, including doctors, hospitals and pharmacies rated highly, with 92% of New Zealanders saying they were trustworthy. The level of trust in Police handling of personal information was also high (84%). Approximately two-thirds of respondents said they had trust in the way government departments (65%) and ACC (69%) handled personal information.
                                                                                                           
By contrast, businesses selling over the internet recorded the lowest level of trust for their personal information handling – only 25% of New Zealanders believed those businesses to be trustworthy.   (17% in Australia.)                   

People who have become more concerned about privacy and personal information are generally less trusting.   The Australian results show they are significantly less trusting than New Zealanders suggesting that trust may also trend downwards here.  Perhaps more awareness means more mistrust.  Our survey certainly shows the flipside, that (generally speaking) the lower the concern, the higher the confidence.  It also showed that levels of trust decreases with age – younger people are more trusting than older people.   Rural, provincial, homemakers, Maori and Pacific island respondents are, typically, more concerned and less trusting.  Interestingly Aucklanders showed rather higher levels of mistrust of business, government and the  internet.

Credit reporting – trust
                                                         
Trust in credit rating agencies was also relatively low (42%) when it came to personal information handling. Trust in credit rating agencies was highest among Pacific island people (56%) and Maori (48%) while for other ethnicities it was 40%. Across the total population, as personal income increased, the level of trust in credit rating agencies decreased.

Targeted marketing
                                                                  
In response to a new question, two-thirds of respondents (67%) said they were uncomfortable that internet search engines and social networking sites tracked internet use in order to deliver targeted advertising.  This is entirely consistent with our very strong anecdotal evidence that people strongly dislike unsolicited direct marketing by phone and snail mail.

Employment  
                                                                             
The survey has shown a continuing downward trend when people are asked about employer monitoring of e-mails and internet use. In 2001, the level of concern was 51%; that concern rested at 50% in 2006 and has decreased in the 2008 survey to 46%.

Health  
                                                         
Half of New Zealanders (50%) were unaware that everyone in New Zealand has their own national health index number which identifies them in the health system. Knowledge of the existence of the NHI was highest (71%) among those respondents classified as ‘homemakers’. In the different regions, knowledge of the NHI was lower in rural areas (46%) but for some reason, was lowest in Christchurch with only 38% of those surveyed reporting awareness of the NHI.

Genetic information and insurance
                                           
Concern about insurance companies being able to make decisions using genetic information was generally high, with 74% of respondents being either concerned or very concerned. The number of respondents who felt ‘very concerned’ rose with age (61% of those aged 60 plus felt ‘very concerned’).                  

Range of issues 
                                                                                 
The survey asked people about a range of specific situations. Concern about privacy was greatest in the areas of safety of children on the internet (87%), and security of personal information on the internet (82%).

Although CCTV use is the subject of a great many media stories and is a constant source of enquiries to our Office, the survey once again showed that video surveillance in public places provoked the lowest level of concern (27%).  

Awareness of Office
                                                                           
The survey also asked people about their awareness of the Privacy Commissioner. This was a “toe in the water” question to see what impact the Office might be seen to have. Overall, the response was fairly good, with 63% of people responding positively. Older age groupings reported a relatively higher level of awareness of the Office. More concerning was the fact that Pacific Island respondents reported a much lower level of awareness (26%) than the rest of the survey population. The Office clearly has some work to do in better targeting information and material to that community.  (Australia 45%.)

Government Information Sharing
                                                         
An interesting result is that concern about government departments sharing personal information rose from 37% to 62% between 2006 and 2008 surveys.  Perhaps this was partly due to making the question clearer – but it shows again that awareness equals concern.  Business is not alone in needing to embrace privacy as an issue.

Conclusion
                                                                                         
How to summarise and make sense of all this?  I will have a go – but I welcome discussion and other thoughts from you.

- People continue to distrust business use of their information; there is no sign of this dropping.
- NZers are confident users of computers and the internet.
- But they are extremely suspicious of internet risks to their privacy and personal information.
- Levels of trust are low; and dislike of tracking computer use and consequent targeted marketing on the internet is extremely high.
- Concern about risks to children is extremely high.
- Maori, Pacific Islanders and homemakers are generally less trusting and more concerned about privacy invasions; on some questions rural and provincial people and older people are now concerned and less trusting.
                                                                            
Of course the conclusion I draw is that we all need to take this issue more seriously.   If information is the currency of the 21st century we need to gain and keep people’s trust – and keep that currency flowing freely.

(Download the powerpoint presentation delivered in conjunction with the Privacy Commissioner's address).