ACT Government's Duplicate Image Replacement Push Gathers Pace This Week

The ACT Government's whole-of-government digital asset program took a concrete step forward this week, with the Chief Digital Officer directorate issuing updated guidance requiring agencies to audit and replace duplicate images across all publicly facing websites and internal content management systems by July 18, 2026. The directive covers more than 40 ACT government websites, including those operated by Transport Canberra, ACT Health, and the Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate.

The push matters now because the territory is mid-way through a broader digital consolidation project that began in earnest in late 2024 and is scheduled to align all ACT government platforms with the federal Digital Service Standard by the end of the 2026–27 financial year. Duplicate and low-resolution images have been identified as a recurring compliance gap in accessibility audits — cluttering search indexes, slowing page load times, and in some cases presenting misleading or outdated representations of public facilities and services to residents.

What the Audit Found Across Canberra Agencies

The preliminary audit, which ran across April and May this year, examined assets stored on the ACT Government's centralised content delivery platform. According to the directorate's published guidance document released Monday, auditors identified thousands of image files duplicated across multiple agency repositories, with a significant number of those files relating to photographs of venues and infrastructure in Gungahlin and Belconnen — the territory's two fastest-growing suburban corridors — that had been updated or redeveloped since the images were first uploaded.

Transport Canberra's web presence drew particular attention. Stop and interchange photography used on the Transport Canberra website included images of Gungahlin Place interchange predating its 2022 reconfiguration. The Belconnen Community Service, which operates out of the Benjamin Way precinct, was also flagged in the audit summary for carrying duplicated event imagery across three separate sub-pages of its website, a problem the directorate's guidance notes is common among community-facing agencies managing high event volumes with small communications teams.

The Australian National University and the University of Canberra are not within scope of the ACT Government directive — both institutions manage their own digital governance frameworks independently — but both have separately adopted image deduplication policies aligned with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2, which came into full effect internationally in October 2023.

What Agencies Must Do Before July 18

The July 18 deadline requires each in-scope agency to submit a completed asset register to the Digital, Data and Technology Solutions division, confirming that duplicate images have either been removed, consolidated into a single canonical file, or flagged with a formal exemption request where removal would break legacy system dependencies. Agencies failing to meet the deadline will be referred for a compliance review under the ACT Government's Digital Governance Framework, a process that can affect funding allocations in the next budget cycle.

For Canberrans who use government services regularly — whether booking appointments through ACT Health's online portal on Lonsdale Street in Braddon or checking Light Rail timetable pages — the practical upshot should be faster-loading pages and more accurate photography reflecting current stops and facilities, including those added under Light Rail Stage 1 extensions completed in 2023. Stage 2, which would extend the line from the City to Woden, remains in planning, and accurate digital assets for any new infrastructure will need to be catalogued from the outset under the new framework.

Agencies that need guidance can contact the Digital, Data and Technology Solutions team directly through the shared services portal on access.act.gov.au. The directorate has also scheduled two drop-in sessions for agency communications staff — one at Canberra City walk-in offices and one online — in the week of July 7, before the compliance window closes.