Customer Identity Matching for the Department of Veterans’ Affairs data exchange 110-06070000

There are 2 main automated data exchanges between Services Australia and DVA, which allow the transmission of data for a number of purposes.

Transmissions are sent between the agencies once daily on business days via the Secure Network Interface (SNI). The data is loaded directly onto customer records on each system, as well as a replica of the DVA database on the Services Australia system (known as the CQEX database). Data transmitted between the agencies includes:

• providing DFISA rates to DVA (which Services Australia calculates and DVA pays) for periods of entitlement before 1 January 2022
• grants of income support payments and DVA Adjusted Disability Pensions for DVA clearance processing
• online concession eligibility
• DVA Debt Recovery processing
• death details
• DVA Integrity checks

The DVA Webservice data exchange operates continuously in real time and is triggered during daily processing on each system. To prevent customers from receiving dual payment of income support or Commonwealth Seniors Health Card, the exchange controls the payment of supplements such as:

• Pension Supplement
• Energy Supplement
• Pharmaceutical Allowance
• Veteran Supplement

Both agencies send messages to see if payments are being made to customers by the other agency, and to notify each other of grants and cancellations. Automated processing will occur when necessary to prevent customers receiving a payment or card from both agencies.

Other transmissions of data include shared data from Births, Deaths and Marriages, and Managed Investment and Listed Securities data, which are sent through the SNI data transfer services.

A suite of transactions has been established to allow data to be transmitted via the SNI and DVA Webservice. To allow this data to be applied to Services Australia and DVA records, identity matching processes are in place. These identify mutual customers and create a link between Services Australia and DVA records. When a link is established, the customer's Customer Reference Number (CRN) is stored on their DVA record, and the DVA Unique Identification Number (UIN) is stored on the Services Australia record.

Identity matching can be initiated by either DVA or Services Australia. DVA sends customer details to Services Australia, where a match will be attempted via the Indexing Manager Facility. This provides for automatic and manual matching of external agency and Services Australia customers, according to established indexing standards. If a match is unclear and can't be established automatically or there are multiple potential matches, manual matching will be carried out by the DVA Clearance Team.

At times DVA will unlink a customer's record from their corresponding Services Australia record. DVA transmits the unlink request to Services Australia, which produces a DVAUNL manual follow up for the DVA Clearance Team to complete.

Services Australia initiates identity matching with DVA records when customers become eligible for DFISA payments and during all claims, restorations and reassessments of:

• pension (PEN)
• parenting (PGA)
• Commonwealth Seniors Health Card (SHC)
• allowances (NSS)
• Carer Allowance (CDA)

Matching is conducted against the Services Australia CQEX database, which contains a complete record of all DVA customers and is primarily used for businesses to confirm concession entitlements in the Centrelink Confirmation eServices (CCeS) system.

Matching will be completed automatically if the customer's Services Australia and DVA details correspond closely. However, if a match is unclear, manual matching will be conducted by the DVA Clearance Team (SCS) via a DVALINK manual follow up. SCS can also manually link and unlink customer records if needed.