How much personal freedom you are willing to trade for public safety, surveillance and order.
What the two poles mean
Security
A score toward 0 means you lean strongly toward security. On this axis, positions near this pole reflect the priorities described above.
Freedom
A score toward 100 means you lean strongly toward freedom. On this axis, positions near this pole reflect the priorities described above.
A common misconception
A security-first score does not mean you want a police state. It measures how much freedom you are willing to trade for safety and order — a trade-off most people make differently in different situations.
The security-freedom axis is often presented as a stark choice between liberty and safety, but almost everyone wants both. The real question is where the balance sits for specific threats: surveillance to catch crime, restrictions to prevent terrorism, powers to maintain public order. People who lean toward security usually weight the harm prevented more heavily; people who lean toward freedom usually weight the cost to privacy and dissent more heavily.
It is also worth noting that security preferences are highly context-dependent. The same person may accept strong measures during a crisis and oppose them in peacetime. The axis captures your general lean, not a fixed position on every policy.
How it relates to the other axes
Security is closely linked to authority (order and obedience) and tends to correlate with nationalism.
Where you stand
Find out where you stand on this axis — and the other 15 — by taking the 16 Values Test. It is free, anonymous and takes about five minutes.