Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993

This section applies if:

a beneficiary of an eligible superannuation entity, or of a regulated exempt public sector superannuation scheme; or

an applicant to become such a beneficiary;

A trustee of an eligible superannuation entity, or of a regulated exempt public sector superannuation scheme, may, subject to any conditions contained in the regulations, use tax file numbers quoted as mentioned in subsection (1):

in order to locate, in the records or accounts of the entity or scheme, amounts held for the benefit of persons; or

in order to facilitate the consolidation of any of the following in relation to a particular person:

RSAs provided by one or more RSA providers and held by the person;

interests of the person in eligible superannuation entities or regulated exempt public sector superannuation schemes.

Sections 8WA and 8WB of the Taxation Administration Act 1953 contain offences for unauthorised use etc. of tax file numbers.

Without limiting subsection (2), regulations made for the purposes of that subsection may contain conditions relating to:

a person consenting to use of a tax file number; or

procedures that must be followed in a consolidation mentioned in paragraph (2)(b), including procedures to safeguard the integrity of the consolidation; or

a trustee disclosing tax file numbers to another trustee, or to an RSA provider, in order to facilitate such a consolidation.

This section does not affect the operation of Australian Privacy Principle 9.

Australian Privacy Principle 9 prohibits a trustee adopting a tax file number of an individual as the trustee’s own identifier of the individual, such as by using the tax file number as an account or membership number.

See also Division 4 of Part III of the Privacy Act 1988 and the rules issued under that Division concerning the collection, storage, use and security of tax file number information.