The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) has said the two conglomerates in the running to build Australia's outsourced visa applicant processing system have shown a platform that attempts to upsell applicants.
"The platform, as presented to staff, would see products like Qantas flights and Optus SIM cards pushed at visa applicants," the union said in a blog post[1].
"Not only does this raise concerns about the Australian government seemingly endorsing these companies and their products, it also shows this push to privatise will reduce our visa system to nothing more than another way commercial interests can push their products and drive up their profits."
The Department of Immigration and Border Protection -- now part of the Department of Home Affairs[2] -- went to tender in September, seeking a provider[3] to design, implement, and operate a new visa business.
During the 2016-17 12-month period, 8.78 million visas were applied for, and the government expects this number to reach 13 million by 2026-27.
Bundle 1 of the visa program includes a major IT component, with the third-party vendor required to offer up a Global Digital Platform (GDP) that is a "world-class digital platform".
The GDP and supporting systems are expected to "drive the end-to-end processing and workflow of the visa and citizenship business", which includes lodgement, assessment, and rule-based decision making on visa applications.
The union previously said the outsourced system was a data security risk[4].
"Based on previous ICT upgrades and outsourcing projects, it is unlikely to lead to savings and more likely to lead to reduced services and data security risks," the CPSU said in March.
"The planned privatisation