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Overview
The Australian Community Attitudes to Privacy Survey (ACAPS) is a long-running study commissioned by the OAIC to assess Australians’ awareness, understanding, behaviours and concerns around privacy. First conducted in 1990 and formalised in its current structure in 2001, the survey provides valuable time series insights into how Australians think about privacy, their experiences with the use and protection of personal information, and the actions they take to safeguard it.
ACAPS 2026 is the 7th survey in a series initiated in 2001. The methodology has evolved over the past 2 decades to reach a representative sample of Australia’s population. Between 2001 and 2013, all interviews were completed via Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI). In 2017, the methodology shifted to a hybrid online and CATI methodology, where 800 surveys were conducted via CATI and 1,000 were completed online, with respondents reached via an online research panel. In 2020, all data was collected online, with 39% of respondents recruited via telephone. In 2023, all data was again collected online, with all respondents reached via an online research panel. In 2026, data collection was primarily online, including a small proportion via CATI.
Since the previous report in 2023, Australians’ attitudes toward privacy have continued to evolve in response to a rapidly changing digital environment. Ongoing high-profile data breaches and cyber incidents have sustained public concern around how organisations collect, store and safeguard personal information, reinforcing expectations for stronger accountability and transparency. At the same time, the accelerated adoption of artificial intelligence, increased use of automated decision-making, and the expansion of data-driven technologies, including biometrics and large-scale data scraping, have heightened awareness of more complex and emerging privacy risks. The study aims to:
- provide insights on Australians’ awareness, attitudes and behaviours towards privacy and understand how they have changed over time
- identify Australians’ awareness of and concerns about key and emerging privacy issues
- collect data to assist the OAIC as the national privacy regulator across policy, compliance, and communications initiatives, and government agencies more broadly in policy development
- examine experiences with privacy disputes, including whether respondents have attempted to resolve a privacy-related matter with a company and their level of satisfaction with the resolution process.
Questionnaire development
The 2026 iteration of ACAPS builds on previous waves, with an increased focus on areas such as privacy complaint resolution, data minimisation, data deletion trade-offs between convenience and value exchange, perceived control and the meaning of consent, as well as AI.
The questionnaire was jointly developed by the Social Research Centre and the OAIC.
Questionnaire development followed a staged, iterative process incorporating a co-design workshop with OAIC staff and relevant stakeholders, an exploratory qualitative research phase consisting of 6 online focus groups with general community members, and 8 cognitive testing interviews. A short validation component was also incorporated into the survey design to assess potential order effects for selected new questions.
The total survey length was 29.5 minutes (29.3 minutes online, 51.7 minutes CATI).
Sample profile
Table 1 below shows the unweighted sample distribution across key demographic profiles.
Group | n | Weighted % | |
|---|---|---|---|
1,504 | 100% | ||
Age | 18-24 | 126 | 8% |
25-34 | 293 | 19% | |
35-49 | 379 | 25% | |
50-64 | 379 | 25% | |
65+ | 327 | 22% | |
Gender | Man or male | 746 | 50% |
Woman or female | 743 | 49% | |
Non-binary | 14 | 1% | |
State | NSW | 487 | 32% |
VIC | 366 | 24% | |
QLD | 285 | 19% | |
SA | 127 | 8% | |
WA | 148 | 10% | |
TAS | 49 | 3% | |
NT | 6 | 0.4% | |
ACT | 36 | 2% | |
Weighting
The sample was weighted to be representative of the Australian adult population by age, highest education level, language other than English spoken at home, number of adults in the household, geographic location (capital city/rest of state), and state or territory of residence.
Fieldwork
ACAPS 2026 was conducted by the Social Research Centre between 16 and 30 March 2026, using a nationally representative sample of 1,504 Australians aged 18 years and over drawn from the Social Research Centre’s probability-based panel, Life in Australia™
Chart labelling
For ease of reading, responses for values less than 5% have generally been omitted on charts.
Rounding of numbers
Results are shown rounded to 2 decimal places. Due to rounding, some results in charts or tables may not add to 100%.
