Introduction

CARO maintains the service records of serving soldiers (not officers) and the records of discharged officers and soldiers from 1948 onwards.
The service records of soldiers discharged prior to 1948 have been transferred to the National Australian Archives (NAA).

Central Army Records Office (CARO) is part of the Soldier Career Management Agency (SCMA).

CARO maintains and interprets personnel files for discharged members of the Australian Army serving from post 1947 to the present day.

It also represents Army's commitment to its ex-service community. It is responsible for the maintenance and managment of the Personal Records of serving, regular soldiers (not officers).

In support of Army, and as an Army service to the community, CARO provides information from those records, to those people or agencies authorised to receive it, and when required, interprets that information.

Privacy

The privacy of serving and ex serving members of the Army is important to CARO. Before CARO will disclose personal information certain criteria must be met. This paragraph does not deal with requests under the Freedom of Information Act 1983.

For requests for information to CARO to be considered, the following criteria must be met:

Requests must be in writing and signed;
If the subject of the request is alive, he or she must supply a signed statment of consent.
If the subject is deceased, information will only be released to the subject's immediate family who must sign a statment advising that the subject is deceased and their relationship.