The NSW Government has awarded Aristotle Metadata a new three-year contract to continue hosting its central metadata platform following a competitive tender process.

The platform has operated since 2018 as part of the state's whole-of-government approach to data asset management and cross-agency information sharing. The metadata registry, which supports agencies in documenting, discovering and sharing critical datasets across the public sector.

Built and managed by Aristotle Metadata, Metadata.NSW serves as a central repository where government departments can catalogue their data assets using standardised metadata protocols.

Metadata.NSW began as a proof-of-concept for sharing information between key agencies, especially around sensitive and high-impact datasets. One of the earliest successes was the Human Services Dataset, which brings together 27 years of inter-agency data about children and families in NSW.

Today, Metadata.NSW is available to all NSW Government agencies, with growing uptake across departments and academic partners.

“This latest phase of the program will see us continuing on a 10-year journey with the NSW Government,” said Samuel Spencer. “We’re excited to welcome more agencies as part of a broad strategy to improve data sharing and data security capability across NSW.”

The initiative addresses longstanding issues in government data management, where departments traditionally operated in silos with limited visibility of datasets held by other agencies.

Aristotle Metadata CEO Samuel Spencer said, “Data is more than just numbers. It’s about people and outcomes, and a person-centric approach to data governance. Looking at how we can communicate across government and academia to improve citizen outcomes is critical to success.”

The platform supports compliance with key legislation including the Data Sharing Act 2015 and Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009. It forms part of NSW's 2021 Data Strategy, which focuses on using data to improve citizen outcomes, treating data as a valuable asset, fostering data leadership and strengthening public trust.

The Aristotle Metadata Registry operates on the ISO/IEC 11179 international standard for metadata registries. The platform is built upon the Django web framework and allows agencies to run their own registries while maintaining federation capabilities.

The system includes the NSW Data Passport, which streamlines data access requests and supports the "5 safes" framework for secure data sharing between government and research institutions.

https://aristotlemetadata.com/