Data Sharing Agreements and Licenses

Open data is data that an agency wants to make available to the public. Creative Commons licenses are recommended for all open data. The Creative Commons licenses are designed to provide copyright owners with an efficient way to manage the rights contained in their copyright work, and to provide data users with simple and flexible terms for use. Creative Commons is an internationally recognised licensing standard and has been adopted as the default position for open data in many other jurisdictions. 

Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) allows users to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon the data, even commercially, as long as they credit the licensor for the original creation in the terms required by the licensor. CC BY is one of several licences in the Creative Commons licensing suite. 

See the full list of Creative Commons 4.0 license types. 

The NSW Department of Customer Service has created a Data Sharing Agreement Template for agencies that are involved in sharing data. 

The Data Sharing Agreement User Guide is a document that may assist with Data Sharing Agreement creation.

Additionally, you can find valuable resources at the Information and Privacy Commission’s website on data sharing and privacy that are useful to consider when developing data sharing agreements.

The Data sharing checklist for data owners outlines key undertakings for data owners when sharing data. 

The Data sharing checklist for data requestors outlines key undertakings that data requestors should agree to when applying to use another agency's data. 

Agencies can use tools and assess whether they meet data sharing agreement needs in low risk data sharing scenarios.

The Human Services Information Sharing Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) establishes an efficient mechanism for facilitating the secure and timely flow of human services data and information between agencies responsible for social service policy and provision, and for the collection and use of data on these services and their clients. Sharing data under the MoU provides the parties with a better understanding of the characteristics that influence the service usage pathways and successful life outcomes.

An Information Sharing Schedule is used to register a new project under the Human Services MoU, and specifies the parties involved and the data to be shared. You must record all projects under the Human Services MoU by registering a Schedule with the Data Analytics Centre (DAC).

To register a Schedule: 

Request a copy of the Information Sharing Schedule template and a Schedule register number from datansw@customerservice.nsw.gov.au and provide the following information:

      a.    Parties (i.e. agencies)
      b.    Project lead/contact (named individual)
      c.    Project title
      d.    Purpose
      e.    Status (e.g. Draft, Proposed, Approved)
      f.     Anticipated end date

Once the DAC receives the above information, the project will be recorded in the register. You will receive a confirmation email with the register number and the project details, which you will be asked to confirm.

Please note, we do not require a copy of the Schedule or MoU. 

If you already have a Schedule register number and you wish to add a sub-project to an existing Schedule, please provide the information in steps a-d above and include your Schedule number in your email to the DAC.