The ranking of this year's Deloitte Privacy Index results clearly show that trust and transparency play a vital role in determining the strength of any potential symbiotic relationship between brands and their consumers.Notably, the information technology sector was ranked highest this year on transparency. Deloitte's experts put that down more to the efforts by the sector to install easy to read privacy statements, than a loss of trust in financial services and government - which each dropped one spot to second and third places, respectively.The Deloitte view is that implications arising from the impending start of open banking are yet to be assessed. "For consumers it's not on the radar yet." Regarding notifications more generally the regulation requires notification if there is the possibility of serious financial or personal harm, as opposed to volumes, said Tommy Viljoen, Deloitte national cyber risk services lead partner.  "As the relationship between brands and consumers constantly evolves, brands have to amend their privacy practices to meet both consumer expectations and regulatory change," he said."The increasing emphasis on consumers 'owning and having control over' their data is a seismic change to the status quo."Respondents were also asked about their knowledge of privacy, how they would feel if their data was involved in a breach, and what their expectations were for the brands to respond to such incidents. Key findings: brands are more likely to lose consumer trust and damage their reputation if customer data is used for cross-selling of personal information (68 per cent); inappropriate marketing (58 per cent), and trading data to enable sales (54 per cent). 58 per cent of consumers are unaware of the requirement by law to notify them of any data breach under the 1988 Privacy Act if their data is likely to be misused; and 90 per cent of consumers still expect to be notified if their personal details are involved in a breach.In regard to the commencement of the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme, the Australian Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim said: "The success of an organisation that handles personal information, or a project that involves personal information, depends on trust. People have to trust that their privacy is protected, and be confident that personal information will be handled in line with their expectations." The key finding of the index confirms this view: 86 per cent of respondents said trust can be rebuilt if timely notification is given.