Canberra agencies scramble to fix duplicate image problem plaguing government websites this week

ACT government agencies have spent much of this week quietly pulling staff into emergency digital housekeeping sessions after a systemic problem with duplicate and incorrectly tagged images was identified across several public-facing websites and internal content management systems. The issue, which affects everything from planning portal maps to health service photography, came to a head on Monday when a routine content audit flagged hundreds of mismatched image files sitting inside the ACT Government's shared digital asset library.

The problem matters now because the Territory's digital services directorate has a hard compliance date of July 31 to bring all public-sector websites into line with updated accessibility standards under the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2. Duplicate images without correct alt-text descriptors are a direct WCAG 2.2 failure — meaning agencies that don't resolve the backlog risk publishing non-compliant pages just as the deadline hits.

Where the problem showed up

Two agencies have been most visibly affected. Access Canberra's online services portal, which handles everything from Dickson pool registrations to Tuggeranong community hall bookings, was found to have a cluster of repeated banner images linked to outdated 2023 campaign materials that were never properly archived. Separately, the ACT Health Directorate's main public site had at least one instance of a clinical staff photograph appearing under two different staff member names — a straightforward database error, but one with real implications for public trust in a health context.

Staff at the Canberra Institute of Technology's digital communications team, which manages web content for the Bruce and Reid campuses, were also pulled into a broader cross-agency briefing held via Teams on Wednesday. CIT is not a government directorate, but its websites draw on the same whole-of-government image licensing agreements, which means duplicate asset problems upstream flow downstream quickly.

The ACT's shared digital asset system, managed under the Digital Strategy 2025–2028 framework, currently holds assets contributed by more than a dozen directorates. Sources familiar with the system — speaking on background because they were not authorised to discuss operational matters publicly — described the root cause as a migration issue dating to late 2024, when several agencies moved content into a new CMS without fully deduplicating their legacy media libraries first.

Fixing it before the deadline

The July 31 WCAG 2.2 deadline is not the only pressure point. The ACT Government's own digital publishing standards, updated in March 2026, require that all images used in public communications carry unique asset identifiers. Any image appearing under more than one identifier in the shared library technically violates that standard regardless of accessibility status — meaning some agencies face a double compliance problem.

Content managers across Barton and Civic-based directorates have been working through a remediation checklist distributed by the Digital, Data and Technology Solutions office. That checklist, seen by The Daily Canberra, runs to 14 steps and includes a mandatory peer-review sign-off before any image record is marked as resolved. Agencies have until July 18 to submit a progress report.

For Canberrans who use government digital services regularly — and in a public service city, that is most residents — the practical risk from duplicate images is mostly invisible day-to-day. Pages may load a wrong photo or display a broken thumbnail, but the bigger concern is accessibility for the roughly 87,000 ACT residents who, according to the 2021 Census, reported living with some form of disability. Screen readers rely entirely on correctly attributed, non-duplicated image records to function properly.

Anyone who spots a broken or mismatched image on an ACT government page can report it through Access Canberra's online feedback form at accesscanberra.act.gov.au. The digital services team has confirmed the July 31 date is fixed, and that agencies which miss it will be listed in a public compliance register — an incentive that appears, at least this week, to be concentrating minds across Civic considerably.