Data Availability and Transparency Act 2022

The following are data sharing purposes:

delivery of government services;

informing government policy and programs;

research and development.

Data sharing agreements must specify the agreed data sharing purpose or purposes and agreed incidental purposes (if any), and prohibit collection or use of data for any other purpose, including any precluded purpose.

For the purposes of paragraph (1)(a), delivery of government services means the delivery of any of the following services by the Commonwealth or a State or Territory:

providing information;

providing services, other than services relating to a payment, entitlement or benefit;

determining eligibility for a payment, entitlement or benefit;

paying a payment, entitlement or benefit.

Making a decision under legislation about whether an individual is eligible to receive a payment, before any payment is made, is an example of delivery of government services. The purpose of making such a decision is not a precluded purpose.

The following are precluded purposes:

an enforcement related purpose;

a purpose that relates to, or prejudices, national security within the meaning of the National Security Information (Criminal and Civil Proceedings) Act 2004;

a purpose prescribed by the rules for the purposes of this paragraph.

An enforcement related purpose means any of the following purposes:

detecting, investigating, prosecuting or punishing:

an offence; or

a contravention of a law punishable by a pecuniary penalty;

detecting, investigating or addressing acts or practices detrimental to public revenue;

detecting, investigating or remedying serious misconduct;

conducting surveillance or monitoring, or intelligence‑gathering activities;

conducting protective or custodial activities;

enforcing a law relating to the confiscation of proceeds of crime;

preparing for, or conducting, proceedings before a court or tribunal or implementing a court/tribunal order.

The purpose of verifying that a government payment previously made to a person was correctly made is an example of an enforcement related purpose. Other examples include the purpose of recovering overpayments, identifying individuals for compliance activity and identifying individuals for the purposes of exercising statutory investigation powers.

A purpose is not a precluded purpose within the meaning of paragraph (2)(a) or (b) if the purpose is both:

a data sharing purpose; and

a purpose that:

is with respect to matters that relate only in a general way to a purpose mentioned in paragraph (2)(a) or (b); and

does not involve any person undertaking an activity mentioned in a paragraph of subsection (3).

A project that involves sharing, collecting and using data in order to prepare (including to create) data for sharing under section 13 as part of a later project that will be for one or more of the data sharing purposes is itself taken to be a project for that or those data sharing purposes.

Subsection (5) applies regardless of whether the entities sharing, collecting and using the data have a particular later project in mind and whether the data is actually shared under section 13 as part of any later project.