The exclusive Resolve Political Monitor findings highlight the community support for a stricter regime to safeguard information from driver licences,passports,birth certificates and other documents often used to open accounts and stored for years by banks,retailers,phone companies,energy providers,government agencies and others.
With thefederal government signalling new rules following a political fight over the blame for the Optus data theft,68 per cent of voters believe Optus was most at fault for the breach and only 11 per cent held the government responsible,with 21 per cent unsure.
The survey,conducted by Resolve Strategic forThe Sydney Morning Herald andThe Age,also found 84 per cent believed Optus should pay to reissue new Medicare cards,passports and other identification documents when personal details had been released.
Federal authorities launched co-ordinated investigations into the Optus breach on Tuesday,withPrivacy Commissioner Angelene Falk saying the penalties could be $2.2 million for each contravention of privacy law.
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has raised the idea of higher financial penalties under reforms to the Privacy Act to encourage companies to delete data safely rather than keep it when they no longer have a use for it in checking the identity of a customer.
“For too long,we’ve had companies solely looking at data as an asset that they can use commercially,” he said.