Public Sector (Data Sharing) Act 2016

Subject to this Act, a public sector agency is authorised to provide public sector data, other than exempt public sector data, that it controls to other public sector agencies for any of the following purposes:

to enable data analytics work to be carried out on the data to identify issues and solutions regarding Government policy making, program management and service planning and delivery by public sector agencies;

to enable public sector agencies to facilitate, develop, improve and undertake Government policy making, program management and service planning and delivery by the agencies;

such other purposes as may be prescribed by the regulations.

Before public sector data is provided to a public sector agency under subsection (1)—

the public sector agency must make a written record of the purpose or purposes for which the public sector data is proposed to be provided and used as agreed with the public sector agency that is to provide the data; and

the public sector agency that is to provide the data must apply the trusted access principles and be satisfied that the provision and use of the data is appropriate in all the circumstances.

A public sector agency must, on being satisfied that the sharing and use of data is appropriate under subsection (2), provide the data to the data recipient as soon as is reasonably practicable.

If public sector data is provided under this section, the data provider and the data recipient must comply with all relevant data sharing safeguards.