299Information matching to recover costs of visa holder's social security benefit from sponsor

1. The purpose of this section is to facilitate the disclosure of information between the department of State for the time being responsible for the administration of the Social Security Act 2018 (the responsible department) and the Department for the purpose of enabling the Department to recover from a sponsor (as defined in section 48 of this Act) the costs of any benefit paid to a person that are recoverable under an undertaking given by the sponsor under that section in accordance with section 55.

2. The chief executive of the Department and the chief executive of the responsible department may, for the purposes of this section, make arrangements between them in writing for the disclosure of information under this section and, in accordance with those arrangements, the chief executive of the Department may supply to the chief executive of the responsible department identifying information about any person in respect of whom an undertaking relating to the payment of a benefit has been given under section 48 of this Act.

3. The chief executive of the responsible department may—

4. compare any information he or she receives under subsection (2) with any information held by the responsible department that relates to the person; and
5. if the responsible department has information about the person, and he or she has received, or is receiving, a benefit, supply the information described in subsection (4) in relation to the person to an authorised officer in accordance with the arrangements made under subsection (2).

6. The information is—

7. the person's full name and gender:
8. any aliases known to the responsible department to be used by the person:
9. the person's date of birth:
10. the person's address:
11. the nature of the benefit provided to the person:
12. the amount of the benefit provided to the person:
13. the period during which the benefit was provided to the person:
14. any unique identifying number used by the responsible department in relation to the person.

15. The chief executive and the chief executive of the responsible department may, for the purpose of this section, determine by agreement between them—

16. the frequency with which information may be supplied; and
17. the form in which information may be supplied; and
18. the method by which information may be supplied.

19. On or after 1 December 2020, no information may be disclosed under this section except under—

20. an information matching agreement entered into under Part 10 of the Privacy Act 1993 and continued by clause 11 of Schedule 1 of the Privacy Act 2020; or
21. an approved information sharing agreement entered into under subpart 1 of Part 7 of the Privacy Act 2020.

22. In this section,—

    authorised officer means an officer, employee, or agent of the Department who is authorised by the chief executive of the Department to receive information from the chief executive of the responsible department in accordance with this section

    benefit means any of the following:

    1. a benefit as defined in Schedule 2 of the Social Security Act 2018:
    2. a funeral grant lump sum payable under section 90 of that Act:
    3. any special assistance payable under a programme approved under section 100 or 101 of that Act

    identifying information, in relation to a person, includes—

    1. the person's full name and gender:
    2. any aliases known to the Department to be used by the person:
    3. the person's date of birth:
    4. the person's address.

Notes

• Section 299(1): amended, on 26 November 2018, by section 459 of the Social Security Act 2018 (2018 No 32).
• Section 299(5A): inserted, on 1 December 2020, by section 190 of the Privacy Act 2020 (2020 No 31).
• Section 299(6) benefit: replaced, on 26 November 2018, by section 459 of the Social Security Act 2018 (2018 No 32).