Glossary and shortened terms

Artificial intelligence (AI)

Artificial intelligence was explained to respondents as follows:

‘Many organisations are now using artificial intelligence (AI) or automated decision-making systems to make decisions that may affect you. In some cases, they may use AI systems developed by third-party commercial providers (e.g. ChatGPT, Grok and Gemini), which may involve sharing your personal information with those companies. These AI systems may be used to help with:

• diagnosing illnesses
• generating   your credit score
• fraud detection
• making hiring decisions for employers  and recruitment organisations.’

Biometrics

Biometrics were explained to respondents as follows:

‘The next section is about biometrics, which is biological and behavioural information about you. This includes things like:

• your fingerprints
• your facial image
• your voiceprint
• scans of your iris or retina your DNA
• the way you walk, your keystroke patterns or other physical characteristics that could be used to identify you.’

Biometric analysis

Biometric analysis uses a wide variety of techniques, such as artificial intelligence, to make assumptions or predictions about the characteristics of an individual from their biometric data.

Data breach

A data breach was defined to respondents as follows:

‘A data breach is when personal information held by an organisation is accessed or disclosed without authorisation, or is lost. Data breaches may result from malicious action (e.g. cyber criminals), human error (e.g. personal information being emailed to the wrong person) or errors in business or technology processes.’

Privacy breach

The term ‘privacy breach’ is used to refer to a wide range of problems experienced with the handling of personal information. It is distinct from ‘data breach’.

Personal information

Personal information was defined to respondents as follows:

‘In Australia, privacy law relates to the protection of an individual’s ‘personal information’. This is any information about you that identifies you or could reasonably be used to identify you. This includes things like:

• your name or address
• your date of birth
• your financial details
• photos or videos of you
• your opinions and beliefs
• your membership of groups and affiliations
• your racial or ethnic origin
• your health information
• your biometrics (e.g. your facial image, DNA, fingerprints)
• your sexual preferences
• your criminal record.’

Organisations

Organisations is used in the survey and report as an umbrella term for private and public entities. The terms ‘businesses’ and ‘government agencies’ are used to distinguish these organisation types.

B2B

Bottom 2 box - the sum of the bottom two codes of a response frame

T2B

Top 2 box - the sum of the bottom two codes of a response frame