Gazette notice: Commissioner of Taxation – Notice of an Officeholder data-matching program 3 November 2023

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) will acquire officeholder data from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations (ORIC) and the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) for 2023-24 through to 2024-25.

The data items include:

■          name, address, date of birth, Australian business number, email address, contact phone number, business name, organisation class, organisation type, organisation status, state of incorporation, officeholder type, role type, officeholder role start and end dates as recorded on the publicly available ASIC Companies Register, the ORIC register of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporations, and the ACNC Charity register.

We estimate that records relating to approximately 11 million individuals will be obtained.

The objectives of the Officeholder data-matching program are to:

■          enable the ABRS to increase uptake of the director ID through better information on officeholders recorded by ASIC, ORIC, and the ACNC Commission.

■          effectively link persons known to the ATO to officeholders and their associated companies as recorded on the ASIC Companies Register, the ORIC register of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporations, and the ACNC Charity register.

■          issue effective correspondence with officeholders regarding their director ID obligations.

■          identify, deter, and disrupt those promoting or engaging in illegal phoenix activity.

■          better utilise registry data to combat unlawful activity.

A document describing this program is available at ato.gov.au/dmprotocols.

This program follows the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner’s Guidelines on data matching in Australian Government administration (2014) (the guidelines). The guidelines include standards for the use of data matching as an administrative tool in a way that:

■          complies with the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) and the Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act)

■          is consistent with good privacy practice.

A full copy of the ATO’s privacy policy can be accessed at ato.gov.au/privacy