The National Disability Data Asset went through a testing period called the Pilot. The Pilot phase ran for 18 months and finished at the end of 2021. The Pilot examined the best ways to share, link and access information. The Pilot protected the privacy of individuals by de-identifying information and keeping it secure. This means the government cannot find out who people are from this data or make contact with them.
Not every state participated in the Pilot. New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland worked with the Australian Government on the Pilot. There were five test cases in the Pilot. The test cases linked information from different government organisations. These links helped show us different information about people which we could not see before. For example, five times more people with disability access homelessness services than people without disability. The tests gave new ideas of how the government could support people with disability.
The aim of the test cases was to show how information could be linked. The test cases also helped show how we could design a disability data asset that linked information from every state and territory. Each test case had different aims and questions. They looked at different groups of people that live in different places. The findings do not apply to all Australians. The findings cannot be compared across test cases.
The findings from the Pilot test case are available on the Pilot phase and findings page.