Canberra's Duplicate Image Problem: What Happens Next and the Key Decisions Ahead

ACT government agencies are sitting on thousands of duplicate digital images spread across legacy systems, and a quiet but consequential push is now underway to decide how — and whether — to clean them up before a major platform consolidation deadline at the end of 2026. The problem has been building for years, but the pressure to act is real and immediate.

The issue cuts across nearly every directorate that holds visual records: infrastructure project photos, planning approvals, public housing inspections, and urban development documentation for fast-growing suburbs like Gungahlin and Belconnen. As the ACT government accelerates its digital transformation agenda, duplicated files sitting across disconnected databases are not just a storage cost — they represent a compliance risk under the Territory Records Act 2002, which requires agencies to maintain accurate, accessible and non-redundant public records.

Why This Decision Can't Wait Much Longer

The ACT Digital Strategy, administered through the Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development Directorate, has set the end of the 2026 calendar year as a staging point for migrating several core agency systems onto consolidated cloud infrastructure. That timeline means any agency that has not addressed its duplicate image holdings risks locking the problem into the new environment — at greater cost and with fewer remediation options.

The Territory Records Office, based on London Circuit in the city centre, is understood to be working with individual directorates on audit frameworks, though the scope of the problem varies significantly by agency. The ACT Planning directorate, which holds photographic records tied to development applications across suburbs from Molonglo Valley to Tuggeranong, faces a particularly complex task given the volume of approvals processed over the past five years as Canberra's residential footprint expanded.

Housing is another pressure point. The Housing ACT portfolio, which manages more than 11,000 public housing properties across the territory, generates inspection and maintenance imagery at scale. Duplicate records in that context can mean contractors are working from outdated photographs, or that condition assessments are being duplicated unnecessarily — adding cost and administrative drag to an already stretched program.

The Decisions That Will Define the Outcome

Three choices are now in front of agency heads and the Territory's digital governance teams. First, whether to run automated deduplication tools across existing repositories or rely on manual audits — a question with direct budget implications, since commercial deduplication software licensing can range from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on volume. Second, whether to establish a single authoritative image repository across the ACT government or allow each directorate to maintain its own managed archive with common metadata standards. Third, and most politically sensitive, what to do with images that are duplicated across both ACT government and Commonwealth agency systems — a situation that arises frequently given Canberra's unique character as a city where federal and territory functions overlap on major infrastructure like light rail corridor planning and National Capital Authority-governed land.

The Australian National University's 3A Institute, located on the Acton campus, has previously published work on responsible data governance frameworks that Territory officials have referenced in policy discussions. The University of Canberra's Faculty of Science and Technology, based in Bruce, also runs research programs touching on digital asset management. Neither institution is formally contracted to advise on the current government effort, but the local expertise is there if agencies choose to draw on it.

Agencies that do nothing face a default outcome: the duplicates migrate with everything else when consolidation occurs, the storage bill grows, and the compliance exposure compounds. The Territory Records Office does have enforcement mechanisms under the 2002 Act, though formal action against directorates is rare.

The practical window for making the right call is short. Agencies wanting to run a clean audit before the platform migration will need to begin scoping work no later than September 2026 to hit the December deadline with any margin. For anyone watching how the ACT government manages its digital estate — and that includes public servants in Barton and Woden who deal with these systems daily — the next six months will be instructive.