ACT Government Tackles Duplicate Image Problem in Property and Planning Records This Week

The ACT Planning directorate this week began a targeted audit of duplicate and incorrectly assigned images across its online property and development application portals, following growing complaints from conveyancers and real estate agents that wrong photographs were appearing against listings in the government's public-facing records system.

The problem matters now because Canberra's property market is moving fast. Median house prices across the ACT sat above $950,000 through the first half of 2026, and buyers are increasingly relying on digital records — rather than physical inspections — during early decision-making. A duplicate or swapped image on a DA record or property certificate can trigger delays in settlement, flag compliance concerns, or simply send a buyer to the wrong address. For a city where public servants make up a disproportionate share of purchasers and renters, even a brief hold-up in approval chains carries real financial consequences.

Where the Problem Has Been Most Visible

The issue has been most visible in high-turnover suburbs. Conveyancers working in Gungahlin and Belconnen — both of which have seen hundreds of new multi-unit developments submitted through the Access Canberra planning portal since 2024 — flagged a pattern of duplicated site photographs appearing across separate development application numbers. In several cases, images uploaded for one block on Gungahlin Drive were appearing against an unrelated development file in the Holt or Macgregor precincts.

The National Archives of Australia, located in Parkes, separately identified a related but distinct problem in its digitised real property records held on behalf of the Commonwealth, where batch-scanning processes had produced duplicate image files without unique identifiers. That institution began its own internal deduplication process in late June, working with its digital preservation team.

The ACT Land Titles Office, which operates out of Dame Pattie Menzies House on London Circuit, is understood to be coordinating with Access Canberra's digital systems team to ensure that any corrections applied in the planning portal cascade correctly into title search documents. The two systems have historically operated on separate databases, which has complicated bulk image replacement in the past.

What the Audit Involves

The audit, which began on 30 June, is using automated matching tools to cross-reference image metadata — including file names, upload timestamps and geolocation tags — against the block and section references attached to each application record. Where a mismatch is detected, the image is flagged for manual review before any replacement is made. The directorate is not removing images automatically; each substitution requires sign-off from a records officer.

The University of Canberra's Digital Heritage and Records Management program, based at the Bruce campus, has for several years pointed to image deduplication as one of the underinvested areas in government digital records management. The ACT government's current audit aligns broadly with recommendations made in a 2024 joint report by the ACT Auditor-General's Office, which noted that inconsistent metadata standards across planning databases created ongoing risks for public record integrity.

Property lawyers operating near the Canberra CBD say the practical effect of duplicate images has ranged from the merely annoying — a client emailed the wrong block photo — to the more serious, where a planning certificate attached to an existing structure showed a vacant lot, briefly creating doubt about whether an approved dwelling actually existed on title.

The directorate has said the initial phase of the audit covers development applications lodged between January 2023 and June 2026, a period that encompasses more than 4,200 applications across Gungahlin, Belconnen, Molonglo Valley and the inner south. Corrections are expected to be completed in stages, with the Gungahlin tranche prioritised given the volume of multi-unit submissions in that area.

For buyers, conveyancers and developers with active applications, the practical advice from the Land Titles Office is to request a fresh image-verified property report rather than relying on cached portal views downloaded before 30 June. Anyone who believes a current DA or property certificate carries a duplicate or incorrect image can lodge a query directly through Access Canberra's online records request form, with corrections currently being turned around in five to seven business days.