Ten federal agencies share data with ACIC fraud taskforce, documents show

At least 10 federal agencies share sensitive personal data with the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) for a fraud taskforce, and that data could be fed into software made by Palantir, the Guardian reports.

The arrangement came to light through freedom-of-information requests made by independent researcher Dr Gabrielle Josling. Department of Education documents say the ACIC is collecting criminal intelligence and analysing and crossmatching data from the education department, the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), Services Australia, the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (Austrac), the health department, and the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations.

Services Australia, which runs Centrelink, has authorised the ACIC to obtain Centrelink claims or reviews, itemised income and asset details, employer information, bank account information and surveillance material. It has also authorised the ACIC to obtain names, dates of birth, proof-of-identity information, addresses and telephone numbers.

The work sits within a multi-agency fraud fusion taskforce, which was established in 2022 to target fraud in government payments from the NDIS, childcare and welfare. The taskforce is headed by the NDIA and Services Australia. The ACIC leads the fraud fusion centre's intelligence program, and it uses Palantir's software as part of that work.

Palantir has said it has no access to the data that clients enter into its software.

The government has spent nearly $80 million on Palantir contracts since May, according to the same reporting.