The Data Availability and Transparency Act 2022 (Cth) (DAT Act) is an Act of the Australian Parliament that authorises and regulates access to data held by the Australian Government.[1]
The Australian Parliament passed the Act into law in March 2022.[2][3][4][5][6] The Act came into effect on 1 April 2022.[7]
The Act creates a public-sector data sharing scheme that permits Australian Government (Commonwealth) bodies to share their data with other Commonwealth bodies, Australian state or territory government bodies, or Australian universities;[8] these entities must be accredited, before they can obtain and use the data.[8][9]
The Act requires that any sharing of data under the scheme must:
be for one or more of the permitted data sharing purposes;[8]
be consistent with data sharing principles;[8] and
The Act specifically precludes sharing of data under the scheme for law enforcement-related purposes or national security purposes.[8] If the shared data includes personal information, privacy protections also apply.[8][9]
The Act permits sharing of data under the scheme for three purposes only:[8]
delivery of government services;
informing government policy and programs; and
research and development.
The Act establishes a National Data Commissioner to be the regulator of this data sharing scheme.[8]
^Keelara, R. and P. Haywood (2023), "Building the data and digital foundations of health systems", in Ready for the Next Crisis? Investing in Health System Resilience, OECD Publishing, Paris, doi:10.1787/9b8a7ce8-en. page 386
^ abcdefghiWitzleb, Normann (2023-04-12), Hennemann, Moritz; Lewinski, Kai von; Wawra, Daniela; Widjaja, Thomas (eds.), "Responding to Global Trends? Privacy Law Reform in Australia", Data Disclosure, De Gruyter, pp. 147–168, doi:10.1515/9783111010601-009, ISBN978-3-11-101060-1
^ abKatie Logos, Russell Brewer, Colette Langos, Bryce Westlake, Establishing a framework for the ethical and legal use of web scrapers by cybercrime and cybersecurity researchers: learnings from a systematic review of Australian research, International Journal of Law and Information Technology, Volume 31, Issue 3, Autumn 2023, Pages 186–212, https://doi.org/10.1093/ijlit/eaad023
