How we use Commonwealth electoral roll data
The data collected under this program will be used to:
- identify people that may be operating outside of the tax and superannuation systems
- locate taxpayers with outstanding tax and superannuation obligations
- assist with the administration of Australia's Foreign Investment Framework requirements in residential and agricultural land, where a person acquires Australian property and does not appear on the electoral roll.
Previous related programs
This is a continuing program. The AEC has provided this data to the ATO since before 2016. The collection of this data continues to be useful in locating taxpayers with incomplete or incorrect address details, and to exclude Australian citizens when enforcing the Foreign Investment Framework.
Data providers
Data will be obtained from the Australian Electoral Commission.
We are the matching agency and, in most cases, the sole user of the data obtained during this data-matching program.
Our formal information gathering powers
Commonwealth electoral laws and associated regulations require or permit the AEC to make information available to nominated government agencies, political parties and members of parliament.
The AEC is authorised to disclose this information to the ATO under item 4 in the table in sub-section 90B (4) of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918. The Act permits the AEC to provide specified information to other government agencies prescribed in the regulations.
The ATO is an agency prescribed at item 10 in the table in Schedule 1 to the Electoral and Referendum Regulation 2016 External Linkand the purposes described in this protocol are specified in this regulation.
The disclosure of this data is in accordance with Memorandum of Understanding between AEC and the ATO.
We will use the data for tax and superannuation compliance purposes.
Privacy Act
Data will only be used within the limits prescribed by Australian Privacy Principle 6 (APP6) contained in Schedule 1 of the Privacy Act and in particular:
- APP6.2(b) – the use of the information is required or authorised by an Australian law
- APP6.2(e) – the ATO reasonably believes that the use of the information is reasonably necessary for our enforcement-related activities.
Data elements we collect
We collect data from the AEC every 3 months.
AEC data is of high quality and regularly relied on for administration of the tax and superannuation systems.
Client identification details – individuals
Client identification data elements for individuals that we collect include:
- name of the registered voter
- residential address of the registered voter
- sex of the registered voter
- date of birth of the registered voter
- occupation of the registered voter.
The collected data may contain all, or a selection of these elements.
- If the electoral laws or regulations are amended to permit the AEC to provide us with additional information, we will update this list and publish a new gazette notice.
Number of records
We expect to collect data on approximately 18 million individuals each quarter for this program.
Data retention
The data we collect from the AEC is refreshed every 3 months. This ensures we have the most up-to-date information available from the AEC. Previous quarter data sets are destroyed and replaced with the new data sets each quarter.