This survey investigated community views on the statutory collection of identifiable data by the Western Australian Birth Defects Registry and the extent to which the use of such data is perceived to be an invasion of privacy, when balanced against the community benefit of three public health scenarios. A total of 600 respondents were recruited randomly from the electronic version of the Western Australian telephone directory; the response rate was 78%. The majority of respondents supported statutory notification of cases (79%) and considered the statutory notification of postcodes (85%) and names and addresses (65%) to not constitute an invasion of privacy. Similarly, most (76%) considered the receipt of a letter requesting participation in research to not constitute an invasion of privacy. Overall, 55% considered none of these to be an invasion of privacy and only 4% considered all to be an invasion of privacy. In conclusion, the majority of Western Australians consider the statutory inclusion and use of identifiable data by the WA Birth Defects Registry as not being an invasion of privacy, when those data are required for legitimate public health research, the respondents are notified by the registrant’s medical practitioner and data are kept confidentially and securely.
