Introduction

Under the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, the Electoral Commission may give a copy or extract of the electoral roll to a prescribed person or organisation for the purposes of satisfying identity verification obligations under the Financial Transaction Reports Act 1988 (FTR Act) and the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (AML Act).

Application

A person or organisation seeking access to electoral roll information (which only includes full name and address of electors) under the FTR Act or the AML Act should address all applications to:

The Electoral Commissioner
PO Box 6172
Kingston  ACT  2604

and be marked Attention Legal Services

Applications should include:

• the designated services that give rise to the obligations under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 or the reasons why obligations exist under the Financial Transaction Reports Act 1988;
• general information about your business/company, including the ABN;
• the systems and procedures in place to ensure that electoral roll information is not used for a purpose which is not permitted; and
• if the applicant is a person or organisation that provides identity verification services to an entity that has obligations under the above Acts, three references supporting your application from customers with obligations under the above Acts.

Process

Before any roll information may be provided, the name of the applicant is required to be prescribed in the Electoral and Referendum Regulations 1940.  This process takes place by the Governor-General making amending regulations and registering these regulations on the Federal Register of Legislative Instruments.  This process will take several months.  Following registration, these regulations are tabled in Parliament and may be disallowed by the Parliament.  If disallowed by the Parliament, the regulations have no effect.

Once the regulations are registered, at its discretion, the Electoral Commission, or its delegate, may decide to provide electoral roll information to that prescribed person or organisation.

Security

The Australian Electoral Commission takes the protection of roll information very seriously.  The use (permitted purposes) for which this roll information may be used is strictly limited to identity verification for the purposes of the FTR Act or carrying out customer identification procedures under the AML Act.  The roll information must not be used for any other purpose.

If the roll information is used for a purpose other than a permitted purpose it may constitute a breach of Division 478 of the Criminal Code Act 1995, which carries a penalty of up to two years imprisonment.  Alternatively, it may constitute a breach of sections 91A and/or 91B of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 which carry financial penalties of 100 penalty units and 1,000 penalty units respectively.

Before any information is provided, an agreement between the Australian Electoral Commission and the successful applicant setting out how the information may be used will need to be signed.  In addition, any employees or contractors who will access the roll information must also sign an agreement with the Australian Electoral Commission.

Provision of Roll Information

Upon successful completion of the regulation-making process the Australian Electoral Commission may provide roll information.

Roll information is usually provided regularly in CD-ROM.

Fees will be charged for the provision of roll information.

Please note: subsection 90B(4) of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 does not permit the Australian Electoral Commission to provide date of birth information for FTR or AML purposes.

More information

If you have any questions, please call Legal Services on (02) 6271 4511 or (02) 6271 4742.