Australia’s first national survey on privacy maturity is almost here, and it will be a game changer for understanding how your organisation’s privacy practices are stacking up against peers. Ahead of the report launch on 19 June, here’s a sneak preview of some of the key findings.
Are we the only ones without a data breach plan? How are other organisations handling their data? Are we really keeping up? At Helios Salinger, we hear these questions from organisations all the time, because even with the best intentions, many are still struggling to understand if they’re doing the right thing.
While every organisation faces unique privacy challenges, there are five common factors impacting the privacy risk landscape:
- The rapid pace of technological change.
- Legislative reform.
- More robust regulatory enforcement.
- Cyber security threat levels.
- Shifting community expectations.
How vulnerable your organisation is to privacy risk, and how well placed you are to support organisational strategies or goals, depends on the effectiveness of your privacy management framework. But a framework is only effective if it rests on solid foundations. A privacy maturity assessment is a stress-test of those foundations.
While we’ve been conducting privacy maturity assessments against a national standard for many years, our clients often want to know how their privacy practices benchmark against their peers. Knowing where you rank, and how far you still need to go, is the key to shifting the privacy maturity needle within an organisation. But until now, that hasn’t been possible: there was simply no way to compare.
That’s why we created Privacy Pulse 2025: Measuring Maturity, Australia’s first benchmarking survey of organisational privacy practices.
Our national privacy health check
In March 2025, we surveyed 119 Australian organisations to understand precisely how they measure up against each other – essentially ‘taking the pulse’ of their privacy practices, from privacy training methods right through to data breach plans.
We received responses from a wide range of organisation sizes and sectors, including large highly-regulated corporations, small privately-operated businesses, as well as government agencies and non-profits.
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 – meaning you can now see at a glance how peers in your industry or sector are scoring in privacy maturity.
The result is never-before-seen data that shows the state of play for organisational privacy practices across Australia, as well as the feelings and worries that come along with it.
A sneak peek at the findings
The results been both fascinating and sobering. While some organisations are leading the pack, overall the survey results suggest that too many have left privacy risk to bubble away on the backburner, instead of addressing it head on.
For example, our survey found that:
- 91% 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. 59% wanted to implement better privacy training for staff across their organisation. And almost two-thirds reported a need for training and resources specific for the privacy, risk or compliance officer or team in their organisation.
More insights to come
The full report, Privacy Pulse 2025: Measuring Maturity, will be available next month. What you’ll find is an eye-opening examination of where the nation is really at with privacy practices, including:
- Rare insights into how organisations are handling six core privacy maturity attributes, including: the maintenance of clear protocols and procedures for handling personal information; communicating those practices to the public; frameworks for identifying and managing potential privacy risks; and preparedness for data breaches.
- Results by sector, including who is ranking highest and lowest across key sectors such as financial services, technology and media, retail, education, construction, health services, government services and more.
- A national score for how Australia is ranking in its overall privacy maturity.
- Tips and guidance on how to use the report’s results to uplift your organisation’s privacy practices.
Join us to find out more
Discover how your privacy practices measure up against Australia’s first benchmarking survey of organisational privacy maturity. Join us at our free webinar on 19 June, when we launch Privacy Pulse 2025: Measuring Maturity, as part of Privacy Awareness Week.
Helios Salinger Partner Anna Johnston will explain how we measured organisational privacy maturity, what we found, and what you can do to improve your organisation’s privacy foundations, in 2025 and beyond.
Our Privacy Maturity Assessments help you achieve legal compliance, and support business strategies or goals. Find out more.
