I put the word given because I can't see words to say it was sold to them, but I would put money on it being sold rather than given.

More than 1 million Australians have had their name and address added to the electoral roll and then automatically passed to global marketing giants without their knowledge.

Direct enrolment laws passed by Parliament in 2012 meant Australians no longer had to register on the electoral roll to have their details entered, with information of workers and school students scanned from drivers licences, Centrelink and records from the Board of Studies in each state.

The electoral roll has since been handed over to credit-check operators for identification purposes designed to help financial services firms such as banks, Afterpay and Zip, to run fraud, anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism checks, but four of those identity firms are now running global marketing operations using data analytics.

No government body has been able to advise if anyone is monitoring the companies for breaches of the electoral act, which carries fines for using the data in commercial operations, or if they are monitoring the separation of data between the companies' identification and marketing arms.

The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age revealed this week that AXCIOM, Experian, Global Data and illion (formerly known as debt collectors Dun & Bradstreet) all have access to the electoral roll as "prescribed authorities". In their secondary businesses, each boasts of their ability to provide marketing data analytics on millions of Australians to their clients but maintain they are in full compliance with the privacy act and do not use the data for marketing purposes.

The Australian Electoral Commission advises people who are going to be automatically enrolled by mail, but those who want to opt out have 28 days to respond or they are automatically signed up to a database that contains information on 16 million Australians. More than 1.5 million Australians who were eligible to vote - but not on the electoral roll - are likely to have been added since the laws passed.

http://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/details-of-1-million-australians-added-to-giant-marketing-database-without-their-knowledge-20190125-p50tnz.html

I don't know, but hasn't it always been possible for anyone to access the electoral roll at any Post Office?

ttbn Possible right but a database is different.

Every house was given a phone book, but if you had the database it was much more valuable.

With a database and computer.
You could put in the phone number and find out who it was.

If you put in a postcode you can get the names and addresses of everyone with a phone in it.

You can even find someone by putting in part information.

Try doing the above with a phone book.

Can you now see why a searchable electoral roll database would be very valuable, it has a lot more information than a phone book.

Also who has the census database?

Telstra has been giving access to our details for years now to the lowest bidders.

These are the NSW Electoral Rolls that are available, for free viewing,

"New South Wales electoral rolls on microfiche are available in the general electoral rolls microfiche cabinet:

1842-1864

1903, 1906, 1908, 1909

1913, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1919

1921, 1922, 1925, 1926, 1928

1930, 1931, 1932, 1933,1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939

1940, 1941, 1943, 1944, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949

1950, 1951, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1958, 1959

1960, 1961, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969

1970, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979

1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1988, 1989

1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999

2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008"

Later ones are also available, they are not secret documents.