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Annual Report
Purpose: To identify current clients who have died so that MSD can cease making payments in a timely manner.
BDM disclosure to MSD: BDM provides death information for the week prior to the extraction date. The death details include the full name, gender, birth date, death date, home address, death registration number and spouse's full name.
Compliance: Compliant.
Technical information
| Information matching provision | Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 2021, s 112 |
| Year authorised | 2001 |
| Year commenced | 2004 |
| Programme type | Confirming eligibility |
| Online transfers | Yes |
System description
Each working day, BDM provides MSD with the details of newly deceased individuals. The death details include full name, gender, date of birth, date of death, home address and spouse's name. To retrieve the BDM file, MSD uses an encrypted connection to access the DIA web server via the Government Logon Service (GLS).
The extracted data is matched against current copies of MSD databases containing beneficiary and student records, held in MSD's data warehouse. The information elements used to match the deaths records against the MSD records include surname, first name and date of birth. The matching algorithm produces match results that are weighted on a scale of one to nine (one being an exact match on all matching criteria, and nine being the lease exact match) to indicate the probability that an MSD client is the person on the deaths register. The match results are transferred into MSD’s data matching case management system, AIMOS.
Specialist data matching officers (DMOs) check the match results before sending a notice of adverse action (s.181 notices) to the estate of each deceased person. Once the s.181 notice period has ended, if no challenge to the details in the notice has been received, the DMOs contact the relevant areas of MSD to end the services being provided to each deceased person.
Recent activity
| 2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | |
| New match runs started in the reporting period | ||||||
| Match runs | 53 | 52 | 83 | 243 | 250 | 253 |
| Records received for matching | 33,834 | 33,688 | 34,426 | 33,735 | 36,698 | 38,561 |
| Possible matches identified | 10,152 | 10,318 | 9,980 | 16,350 | 14,790 | 16,268 |
| All match runs active in the reporting period | ||||||
| Matches that require no further action | 5,692 | 5,770 | 4,004 | 7,284 | 5,601 | 7,591 |
| Notices of adverse action | 4,472 | 4,536 | 6,031 | 9,081 | 9,211 | 10,335 |
| Overpayments established | 722 | 817 | 1,182 | 808 | 1,247 | 6,058 |
| Value of overpayments established | $316,944 | $635,829 | $669,784 | $533,380 | $970,282 | $558,414 |
| Challenges | 0 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 7 | 6 |
| Successful challenges | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 2 |
The frequency of the match was changed in 2020 from weekly to every working day to facilitate prompt processing.
The utility of this provision was assessed in a report Integrity Intervention Matches (July 2013), and subsequently in the Ministry of Social Development information matching; review of statutory authorities for information matching (Sept 2019).
