Privacy Pulse 2025

Measuring Maturity

Australia’s first survey on privacy maturity and how organisations are addressing privacy risk.

Our national survey of 119 organisations reveals that many are wrestling with their privacy practices.

Privacy training is the weakest link, with organisations struggling to offer adequate staff training. Many also tell us that they’re lacking robust processes for identifying privacy risks. Meanwhile, sectors vary wildly in their approach to privacy, with some tackling their obligations head on, while others are postponing the inevitable.

In our inaugural survey into privacy maturity, we ‘take the pulse’ of organisations across a wide range of sectors to understand exactly how they’re dealing with privacy challenges, from training methods right through to data breach plans.

The result is never-before-seen data that shows the real state of organisational privacy practices across Australia, as well as insights and tips to help you improve your organisation’s privacy management foundations.

THE RESULTS

Key findings

91% of organisations have done the right thing and designated a Privacy Officer, but overall investment in staff privacy training is drastically lacking.

The retail sector is leading the pack in privacy practices and public communication, but you might be surprised by which sectors are lagging behind.

Most organisations lack a robust process for identifying privacy risk, with 46% admitting to only ‘ad hoc’ privacy risk and identification processes. Disturbingly, 10% of respondents reported having no process at all, which is a real concern for chief risk officers as well as privacy regulators.

The overall mood was overwhelmingly frustrated. Almost half reported difficulty understanding or keeping up with legislation, and 59% wanted to implement better privacy training for staff across their organisation.

Organisation
surveyed

THE SAMPLE

Who we spoke to

Hover over the bar chart to see the sector

THE METRIC

What we measured

We based our survey questions and scoring criteria on the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC)’s Maturity Model, to ‘rank’ organisations against four key maturity levels.

This means you can see at a glance how peers in your industry or sector are scoring in privacy maturity – and benchmark your own privacy practices against the national average.

MESSAGE FROM THE TEAM

“This report is a game changer for understanding how your organisation’s privacy practices are stacking up against your peers. Gone are the days of simply drafting a privacy policy and hoping for the best – no matter the size or sector of your organisation, privacy risk is now business risk.”

Anna Johnston
Partner
Helios Salinger

Download the Report

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Helios Salinger can provide a tailored solution for your privacy and data governance needs.