South Australia's Ombudsman has found the use of the campaign tool NationBuilder by the former premier's office was "inadvertent" and any information collected "most likely could not be used in a meaningful way".
The use of NationBuilder was the subject of several exclusive ABC stories last year, which revealed that visitors to official government websites had been redirected through a link referencing the Liberal Party's NationBuilder.
The campaign tool can be used to build a database of individual profiles by collecting email addresses and phone numbers, and through tracking a user's behaviour across third-party websites.
The former premier Steven Marshall at the time denied the link redirections were collecting any data, and an inquiry by the state's Privacy Committee later concluded it was "probable" the government did not facilitate unauthorised data collection from government website users.
The ombudsman Wayne Lines launched his own inquiry last October, to determine whether there was "sufficient evidence" of maladministration or misconduct to warrant an investigation.
In a statement released on Monday, Mr Lines said "employees of a range of agencies" had copied and pasted hyperlinks from media releases "without understanding the potential implications".
He said the former premier’s office had "inadvertently" continued using its media email distribution list, managed through the SA Liberal Party’s NationBuilder, once it formed government in March 2018.
"Although it appears that clicking on the relevant hyperlinks produced some form of data which was then sent to the NationBuilder platform, the data itself was a mixture of data from separate users," he said.
"Given this … it was highly plausible that those hyperlinks were copied and pasted by public officers who had no knowledge or understanding of the data implications.
"It would be very difficult to assess whether the data had been used."
Mr Lines engaged cyber security expert Dr Vanessa Teague from the Australian National University's College of Engineering and Computer Science to provide advice on the technology.
He said that "noting the expert advice" he did not believe it to be in the public interest to take further action.
But he said the use of a NationBuilder email distribution list by the former premier's office was "regrettable", and "created the perception of public information being used for party-political purposes".
"The Code of Ethics for the South Australian Public Sector recognises that one of the four foundations of public service is impartiality from political influence," he said.
"The Ministerial Code of Conduct also requires ministers to uphold the conventions of public service neutrality, respect that the public service is a public resource and refrain from asking public servants to work on party political matters.
"I have released this statement to raise awareness and as a necessary reminder to all political parties of the importance of government resources not being used, or having the appearance of being used, for party-political purposes."
Software served a purpose
South Australia's Liberal Opposition Leader David Speirs said it would not be in the public interest to move forward with an investigation.
"The ombudsman has essentially said there's nothing further to look at here and there are no concerns stemming from it," he said.
"The hyperbole and the anger and the false over-the-top pronunciations by (Labor frontbencher) Tom Koutsantonis, saying this was the biggest problem, there was criminal behaviour being covered up here, that this was corruption at the highest level — well clearly that all turned into hyperbole.
Mr Speirs said the software "served a purpose for the Liberal Party in opposition" and had been transitioned into government.
When questioned whether the campaign tool's use should have been carried over into government after the 2018 election, Mr Speirs said: "It is what it is."
"It was a system that worked for us at the time … the ombudsman has said there was no problem with that," he said.
"That is a fair comment, and I'm sure all political parties will be taking a look at that and ensuring they've got their houses in order."
South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas said the government would make sure any recommendations from ombudsman were carefully considered.
