Telephone interviews with 1,020 Canadian adults reveals that respondents want strong laws to protect their personal information in an era when they feel they have less protection than a decade ago.

A poll by Ekos Research Associates, conducted earlier this year, found that 71 percent of respondents felt they have "less protection of my personal information in my daily life than I did 10 years ago."

The poll also found that 77 percent of respondents indicate that strong laws to protect Canadians' personal information are of "high importance."

The poll was taken in the wake of public revelations of a program that allows U.S. counter-terrorism experts to use subpoenas to obtain financial data from a Belgium-based banking consortium about international wire transfers.