People create data touch points every day. We search the internet, catch up with friends on social media, shop online, catch public transport and, increasingly, undertake more complex and personal interactions with the health sector and social services.

Up to a century ago mining and resource companies dominated as the world’s most valuable brands. In 2019 the four largest companies by market value were technology companies – Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet (owns Google), and they trade in data. The ability to store and analyse vast quantities of data leads to our increasing ability to produce new insights and business opportunities.

Better use of data can enable government to perform its functions more efficiently and effectively - to differentiate needs, to understand the impact of its interventions, to prioritise where it spends resources and to build feedback loops to enable continuous adaptation.

ACT Government seeks to improve the wellbeing of our people so we can all reach our full potential. Public services such as schools, hospitals, transport, child protection and policing have the ability to further improve outcomes for our community and transform lives. This is particularly important for people with diverse and complex needs, and for those suffering any form of disadvantage. To do this, government services are dependent on having all the relevant information to support better planning, strong decision making and effective service provision.

ACT Government is committed to improving information and data sharing within government and with our strategic partners. Central to this is continuing to safeguard the security and privacy of the personal information we collect. As we move forward discovering new uses for our data, we need to decide how to strike the best balance between the opportunities that present themselves, and the risks.

Our vision is that the wellbeing of Canberrans is improved through planning, policy and research that delivers better services for all. This means that we will:

• consider privacy, security, transparency and ethics in conducting data and digital activities, underpinned by strong governance arrangements.
• make it clear how the information we collect is protected and used, particularly for all new services and every service we make changes to, leading to increased trust in the ACT Government’s use of your information.
• provide easier ways to manage your information and give or remove permissions. We will do this using the ACT Digital Account. As services become connected to your Digital Account, you can make choices.
• ask your permission to reuse or share your information to deliver better services to you, for example, if you move, you can tell us your new address once and ask that we update this in all places we store that information. We will do this in a way that’s easy to understand and helps you make an informed choice.
• provide alternative options for people who choose not to have their personal information reused.
• use data to identify people with diverse and complex needs to ensure they receive timely and seamless services.
• be open and transparent about data we use for research, policy and analytics purposes and how that data is protected and secured, particularly for new data analytics projects.
• embed a consistent ‘privacy and security by design’ approach to the development of new and changing services and ensure ongoing monitoring and detection is built into ongoing operations of these services
• collaborate with people in the community to understand and keep in touch with the range and strength of attitudes to privacy and data sharing, to help make the best-balanced choices around how your data is used.
• publish more open data of higher quality and in formats that can also be read by machines. This could empower our community and industry partners to add value to the data in ways that are of benefit the community. We will also provide the community with easier ways to access and interpret the data.