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Annual Report
Purpose: To enable the Ministry of Justice locate people who have outstanding fines in order to enforce payment.
Justice disclosure to MSD: Justice selects fines defaulters for whom it has been unable to find a current address, and sends the full name, date of birth and a data matching reference number to MSD.
MSD disclosure to Justice: For matched records, MSD returns the last known residential address, postal address, residential, cell-phone and work phone numbers, and the unique identifier originally provided by Justice.
Compliance: Compliant.
| Information matching provision | Social Security Act 2018, Schedule 6, cl 13 |
| Year authorised | 1996 |
| Year commenced | 1998 |
| Programme type | Locating people |
| Unique identifiers | Data Matching Reference Number |
System description
On a daily basis Justice send MSD, by encrypted online transfer, details of fines defaulters with whom they have lost contact. The defaulters eligible for selection include those where Justice does not have a current address, and no current arrangement to pay is in place. Justice sends the full name, date of birth (and a unique identifier which is generated and used solely in this programme) about the selected fines defaulters. A maximum of 20,000 records is allowed per supply.
MSD attempts to match the fines defaulter information with beneficiary full name and date of birth information held in MSD files. For matched records, MSD returns to Justice the last known residential address, postal address, residential, cell-phone and work phone numbers for the person, and the unique identifier originally provided by Justice.
Match information will only be provided on persons who have been in receipt of a benefit within the last two years, or where data has been confirmed as correct within the last two years.
| 2019/20* | 2020/21* | 2021/22* | 2022/23* | |
| Match runs | 205 | 234 | 152 | 259 |
| Records sent for matching | 2,258,579 | 3,018,839 | 805,979 | 2,725,438 |
| Possible matches identified | 593,651 | 828,880 | 285,865 | 898,011 |
| Notices of adverse action | 193,944 | 182,568 | 95,295 | 188,9291 |
| Challenges | 381 | 660 | 241 | 95 |
| Successful challenges | 113 | 28 | 21 | 15 |
Financial Outcome Activity
We report combined totals for this programme and the IR/Justice Fines Defaulters Tracing Programme because Justice cannot always determine which programme resulted in the payment of an outstanding fine.
| 2019/20 | 2020/21* | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | ||
| Paid/settled ($) | IR | 17,881,362 | 24,258,495 | 10,205,001 | 17,849,417 |
| MSD | 16,203,922 | 22,917,006 | 5,983,498 | 10,880,504 | |
| Both | 2,941,714 | 59,395 | 5,983,498 | 191,355 | |
| Total paid/settled ($) | 37,026,998 | 47,234,896 | 16,697,017 | 28,921,276 | |
| People with payment or remittal | IR | 75,174 | 107,275 | 40,494 | 94,076 |
| MSD | 72,069 | 92,018 | 25,834 | 52,798 | |
| Both | 13,114 | 261 | 2,622 | 966 | |
| Total people with payment or remittal | 160,357 | 199,554 | 68,950 | 147,840 |
*The figures for the most recent are provisional figures and will be updated after the next reporting period.
This programme was previously authorised by section 126A of the Social Security Act 1964.
The utility of this provision was assessed the reports Immigration and Justice Matches (September 2012), Review of statutory authorities for information matching (September 2017), and Report by the Privacy Commissioner to the Minister of Justice in relation to a review of the operation of five information matching provisions (September 2022).
