Activating the Department of Home Affairs datalink and contingency procedures if datalink is unavailable 106-06020030

A datalink exists between the Department of Home Affairs and Centrelink to provide customer visa and movement information from 1 September 1994 onwards and grants of Australian citizenship where available.

To automatically assess and record residence information for any Centrelink payment, the datalink needs to be activated. Once activated, Centrelink will continue to receive immigration information on an ongoing basis as long as the Customer Immigration link status on the Immigration Enquiry (RSIMME) screen is showing as ‘active’.

When the datalink is unavailable, manual procedures are required. This procedure can be used for both a new claim and for any assessment activity which requires residence details to be recorded and/or assessed.

The datalink is automatically activated to check immigration records through:

• new claims
• partner and child linking activities and
• in activities when residence or portability data is updated, such as the lifting of a residence quarantine during a portability interview

If an immigration record exists for a customer, their partner or any children, the information from the datalink will be automatically applied to their Centrelink record in one of these activities. The datalink can also be manually activated on a customer or child record.

To link a customer with their Department of Home Affairs record, some or all of the following information is used:

• surname
• first name
• gender
• date of birth
• country of birth
• travel documents
• visa identification numbers

If this data is missing or incorrect, it reduces the likelihood of the customer being automatically linked to their Department of Home Affairs record.

The information received via the Immigration Datalink is:

• Australian citizenship (in limited circumstances)
• Visa subclass, grant dates, end dates and visa qualifier information
• movement information
• travel documents

When information is coded on the RSIMME screen, it will have an associated channel code:

• IMM - when the update is automatically applied by the Immigration Datalink
• IMC - when the update is recorded manually by Centrelink International Services (CIS)
• CSO - when the update is recorded manually by a staff member outside of CIS

Note: currently when a customer has their visa ended, the Immigration Datalink will only provide an end date for the most recent visa. This means that earlier recorded visas may show as open on the customer record, despite those visas not being current. For further details see Recording legal residence status.

Where a customer wants to dispute information, or a Service Officer thinks that the data received through the Immigration Datalink is incomplete or incorrect, the matter must be referred to Centrelink International Services (CIS) who will investigate the issue.

Under no circumstances is a Service Officer outside CIS to advise a customer to contact the Department of Home Affairs directly. See Referring inconsistencies in overseas departure and arrival information to Centrelink International Services (CIS).

The Immigration Limiting Date (ILD) is the date from which movement information obtained via the datalink will be used in the customer's assessment.

Any customer advised departure and arrival dates that are:

• already recorded before the Department of Home Affairs match is made and are dated before the ILD are used in the assessment
• recorded after the Department of Home Affairs match is made and are dated after the ILD are generally not used in the assessment. Only Department of Home Affairs departure and arrival data is used after the ILD unless the datalink is in 'contingency mode'

If the datalink is in 'contingency mode' (not available for some reason or too slow), the relevant portability and residence information can be manually recorded by the Service Officer. This Service Officer recorded data will be used in the assessment until such time as the customer record is out of 'contingency mode'. Once this happens and the datalink becomes available, the immigration data will be applied to the customer's record. As the immigration data will override any customer provided information, it is possible a customer's payment may be cancelled when the data from Department of Home Affairs becomes available.

Even when the datalink is successful, the Service Officer will still need to manually record some residence information. This will include citizenship for most people and visa information from before 1 September 1994. As where the customer is residing is a discretionary decision, the country of residence information will also need to be manually checked and recorded.