Star of the South Exploration (SOTS) Licence Data Submission

<div>This data submission was provided by the Offshore Energy Pty Ltd (also known as SOTS) to the Commonwealth under clause 8.3 of the Exploration Licence (D2024-46036). The data is Commercial-in-Confidence. </div><div><br></div><div>Under a Memorandum of Understanding dated 30 November 2022 between the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (the department) and Geoscience Australia (GA) it was agreed that the management and sharing of offshore wind energy research and exploration data will be provided to the Commonwealth. This may be a one-off situation until new Legislation is developed. In the meantime, Exploration Licence conditions require the Offshore Energy Pty Limited (also known as SOTS) to submit data to the Commonwealth.</div><div><br></div><div>A SOTS Data Sharing Exchange of Letters was signed on March 2024 (D2024-46035) which outlined the terms under which data will be accepted and managed by GA on behalf of the Commonwealth.</div><div><br></div><div>The data was submitted to GA using the National Seabed Mapping (NSM) Data submission tool using a temporary Amazon s3 bucket. Data was received under three categories (Geophysical & Geotechnical; Meteorological &; Oceans,&nbsp;and Marine Ecosystems &; Ecological - totalling 29.5 TB (1.2 million files). A data listing can be found in the SOTS Exploration Licence data directory (D2024-22376).&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><strong>The department and GA have agreed that GA will:</strong></div><div><em>accept the data on behalf of the department; and</em></div><div><em>store the data in its data management platform and make it available to the department as agreed between us.</em></div><div><br></div><div><em>GA will, acting on behalf of the department, accept the data directly from SOTS.</em></div><div><br></div><div><strong>GA acknowledges that:</strong></div><div><em>the data is provided to the Commonwealth on the terms and conditions of the Exploration Licence;</em></div><div><em>GA accepts the data on those same terms, including in relation to confidentiality and intellectual property; and </em></div><div><em>this exchange of letters does not affect the ownership of intellectual property rights applicable to the data.</em></div><div><br></div><div><strong>GA will store the data securely in its information technology system, with internal access restricted on a need-to-know basis.</strong></div><div><br></div><div><strong>GA acknowledges that it holds and manages the data on behalf of the department for the purposes of the Archives Act 1983 (Cth) and it will consult with the department before destroying any data to ensure the department remains compliant with relevant information management legislation.</strong></div><div><br></div><div><strong>GA must not publish or disclose the data to a third party without SOTS’ prior written consent.</strong></div><div><em>If GA wishes to disclose the data to another Commonwealth agency, it must take all reasonable steps to protect confidentiality including by notifying the receiving agency that the data is confidential and requiring it to accept the data on the same terms as the Exploration Licence.</em></div><div><br></div><div><em>If GA wishes to use or disclose the data outside the terms of the Exploration Licence, it will enter into its own arrangements with SOTS.</em></div><div><em>GA will immediately inform the department if data is accessed, used, and/or disclosed except in accordance with the Exploration Licence and this letter.</em></div><div> </div><div>GA will immediately inform the department if data is accessed, used and/or disclosed except in accordance with the Exploration Licence and the Data Sharing Exchange of Letters.</div><div><br></div><div>Following discussions between NSM staff, the Director of Data Services and the Manager, Data Governance and Catalogue it was agreed that the Geoscience Australia Information Archive (GAIA) would be the best solution to fulfill the requirements of the Data Sharing Exchange of Letters and to ensure the enduring value of the data to the Commonwealth.</div><div><br></div><div>GA Roles and Responsibilities have been outlined in the Lineage and in D2024-46051.</div>