The biggest change in administrative processes saw the introduction of self-government for the ACT in 1989. This resulted in the transfer of all the DCDB data, the appropriate staff, all software and hardware associated with the DCDB from the Commonwealth Government to the new ACT Government. All blocks of land created since 1992 have been captured from digital data provided by surveyors. Queries can be performed using the combined data in both systems, through a block key held against every block of land in both databases. The results of these queries can be displayed either graphically or textually.
Users can search by block and section number or street address.
Users can select an area of the ACT and return lease data, unit title information, block details and much more. Users can print the result of their search in the form of a map. Each night an automatic process rolls yesterday's update copy into today's inquiry copy and the inquiry copy becomes the backup copy. Normal market rates for digital data are charged for data provided to private enterprise and the Commonwealth Government. As a result of the success of that project, the level of interest in the market place for national data set products has risen considerably, and the development of national procedures for providing these products should result in an external source of revenue for the ACT in future years.