Scottish Social Attitudes 2019: data trust

Introduction

The Scottish Social Attitudes (SSA) Survey was established in 1999 by ScotCen Social Research, an independent research organisation based in Edinburgh, and part of NatCen Social Research, Britain's largest independent research agency. SSA is conducted annually, using face-to-face interviews with people selected using random probability sampling, to ensure findings are representative of adults across Scotland. The survey has provided an important source of data on attitudes to government and to the Scottish Parliament over the last 20 years, as well as attitudes to a wide range of other subjects. For the 2019 survey, 1,022 individuals aged 16 and above were interviewed between 30^th August 2019 and 18^th March 2020.

This paper presents the findings of the Scottish Government funded questions in SSA 2019 covering level of trust in public service organisations and private companies to use personal data only for acceptable purposes. These questions were also asked in 2017. It examines whether attitudes have changed between 2017 and 2019, and whether attitudes varied by social groups.