ACT Government's Digital Asset Push Hits Snag as Duplicate Image Problem Plagues Agency Websites

A systematic problem with duplicate and mismatched images embedded across multiple ACT government websites came to a head this week, forcing digital content teams across several Canberra-based agencies to pull and replace hundreds of files that were either duplicated, incorrectly labelled, or rendered broken after a platform migration completed in late June 2026.

The timing is uncomfortable. The ACT Digital Strategy, which the ACT Government has been rolling out since 2023, set an explicit target of having all public-facing agency websites compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 by 1 July 2026. Duplicate images — particularly those lacking distinct alt-text tags — are a direct accessibility failure under those standards, meaning the glitch landed on exactly the wrong day.

The practical effect has been visible to anyone using Canberra Connect or the Transport Canberra website this week. Broken image placeholders appeared on several suburb-specific pages covering light rail route information for the Gungahlin corridor, while the Access Canberra service-finder tool briefly displayed stock photographs recycled from unrelated government campaigns — including one infrastructure image tagged to Belconnen that actually showed a Melbourne streetscape.

What Went Wrong and Where

The root cause, according to agency communications circulated internally and seen by The Daily Canberra, was a bulk upload process used during the June migration to the whole-of-government Drupal 10 content management system. Automated scripts designed to strip duplicate file names instead flagged legitimate images as redundant and quarantined them, leaving gaps across dozens of pages. The Content Strategy and Digital Channels team within the Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development Directorate — based at 220 London Circuit in the city — has been coordinating the cleanup since Monday.

At least three directorates were affected: Transport Canberra and City Services, Health, and Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development. The Health Directorate's HealthPathways ACT portal, which is used by GPs and practice nurses across the territory, had thumbnail images for several patient resource pages replaced with duplicates drawn from an older 2023 library — meaning some clinical guidance pages displayed photographs associated with the wrong health condition category. The directorate confirmed on Thursday that all affected pages had been manually reviewed and corrected.

The Australian National University's Digital Humanities Hub, which has an ongoing service-level agreement with the ACT Government to audit public sector digital accessibility, flagged the WCAG non-compliance to CMTEDD on 1 July — the same day the new compliance deadline took effect. ANU researchers have been involved in ACT digital accessibility reviews since a memorandum of understanding signed in February 2025.

What the Fix Looks Like — and What Comes Next

Transport Canberra has published a correction log on its internal intranet, committing to a staged image audit across all 1,400 pages of its public website by 18 July 2026. Each page is being checked against a new duplicate-detection protocol that requires human sign-off before any bulk file operation runs in the Drupal environment. The University of Canberra's Centre for Accessibility and Inclusion Research, located at the Bruce campus on Kirinari Street, has been asked to provide a third-party sign-off report once the audit is complete.

For Canberrans who interact with these services day to day, the most immediate question is whether the broken or mismatched images created any material confusion — particularly on health pages. The Health Directorate said no clinical information itself was altered, only decorative or contextual imagery. Still, accessibility advocates have long argued that image errors are not cosmetic issues: for users relying on screen readers, an incorrect or missing alt-text tag is the equivalent of a missing paragraph of text.

The episode is a concrete illustration of why large content migrations need staged rollouts rather than big-bang cutovers. Digital teams in the Gungahlin and Tuggeranong district offices — both of which manage locally tailored web content — have been told to hold all non-urgent image uploads until the central audit clears. A full incident review is scheduled for 21 July, with findings to be tabled with the ACT Government's Digital Oversight Board before the end of the month.