ABS Data Sharing And Fraud Fusion Taskforce Pias

Written by Claude Haiku 4.5 from the extracted text on 27 Feb 2026. It can miss or misread redacted and scanned pages. Check the source before relying on it.

The Department of Education completed a Privacy Impact Assessment for a data sharing agreement with the Australian Bureau of Statistics executed in January 2024. The agreement authorises disclosure of de-identified unit record child care data to the ABS for official statistics and statistical research purposes under the Census and Statistics Act 1905. The arrangement enables approved departmental officers, Commonwealth, state and territory agency employees, and non-government researchers to access data in the DataLab environment for approved research. The department previously shared these datasets via public interest certificates for the National Early Childhood Education and Care Collection, Consumer Price Index calculations, and data linkage projects. The new agreement consolidates these arrangements under a single framework while maintaining privacy protections and reducing sharing costs. The initiative aims to improve macroeconomic and family statistics quality and develop evidence about early childhood education and care outcomes.