Australians fear ID theft and financial fraud far more than terrorism

David Heath
Wednesday, 04 May 2011 15:41

Your IT - Home IT

Although possibly tempered by events of the past couple of days, a recent survey shows that Australians are much more concerned about their financial and identity security than any possible terrorism threat.

According to the latest Unisys Security Index report, Australians are showing the lowest concern for personal security in the 5-year history of the survey.

Based on a 300-point scale, security concerns peaked at 144 in August 2007 and are now at just 111.

In the current survey, conducted in late February and including the responses from 1,200 people, around 55% of respondents were very or extremely concerned about 'other people obtaining their credit / debit card details' and 'unauthorised access to or misuse of their personal information.'

In comparison, just 34% were very or extremely concerned about 'Australia's national security in relation to war or terrorism.'

'The results reflect that today's security environment has evolved significantly since the 2001 terror attacks, which dominated the media and social psyche at the time,' explained John Kendall, Security Program Director, Unisys Asia Pacific. 'While traditional national security issues clearly remain in the background, more contemporary issues such as identity theft and environmental concerns today have a greater potential immediacy for larger numbers of Australians.  This may be due to the fact that these issues are more visible in the media today, or that larger numbers of Australians are being directly impacted them, or a combination of both.'

Could we perhaps start to believe that the 'I am not afraid' campaign (where politicians are specifically asked to NOT increase the fear level) is starting to have an effect?