According to GBG, a global technology specialist who is acting as a data service broker for the new initiative, the “Australian Death Check” will be a new data cleansing service that will match customer data with more than 2.5 million government registry death records on a daily basis.

The service is a joint initiative from state and territory registries and will provide “the only official source of death data in Australia”.

Trials for the service are currently underway thanks to Queensland's Registry of Birth, Deaths and Marriages as part of a nationwide soft launch, prior to the ADC’s launch to the wider market later this year.

GBG has noted that in the face of an ageing population, Australian businesses will need to remain proactive in ensuring customer data remains accurate.

The company’s regional general manager Australia, Carol Chris, has commented on the “critical” nature of ensuring customer data is accurate and up to date, particularly with respect to deceased persons.

This is also important in light of a regulatory crackdown on the practice of charging fees for no service to deceased persons, a practice that was uncovered in, and consequently condemned by, the banking royal commission.

“The damage that can ensue from transacting with or marketing to a deceased person can be devastating to the family left behind, as well as result in significant brand and reputational damage,” she flagged.

“To date, death data in Australia has lacked a single source of truth, but the ADC will close this gap in the market, making this data easily accessible and always up to date.”

Speaking to the companies that ADC could assist in this regard, Ms Chris considered that as well as clearly being “the right thing to do, cleansing and decluttering your database can also help businesses to significantly improve the customer experience, reduce operational costs by eliminating waste, and reduce the financial impact of identity fraud and money laundering”.