How we use artificial intelligence

Karabena Consulting Trust. October 2026.

Purpose and scope

This statement sets out how Karabena Consulting Trust uses artificial intelligence, what we will not use it for, and the conditions we hold ourselves to when we do. It is published so that the communities we work alongside, and the clients who commission us, can hold us to it.

It applies to all directors, employees, contractors, consultants, associates and volunteers of Karabena Consulting Trust and Weyarn Pty Ltd, and to every project we deliver.

It sits alongside, and does not replace, our ethical practices, principles and implementation framework, our Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy, and our commitments on Indigenous Data Sovereignty, privacy and confidentiality. Where this statement and those documents appear to differ, the stricter protection applies.

Our position

Artificial intelligence is a tool. It is not a knowledge holder, it is not a community member, and it does not carry cultural authority. We use it where it helps us do our work faster or more thoroughly. We do not use it where it would stand between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the decisions that affect them.

The systems now in widest use were built largely without the participation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and they reproduce what is already written about us far more readily than what we say about ourselves. That is a reason to be present and deliberate in how we use them, not a reason to stand outside them. Our position is that First Nations organisations should be in the room while these tools are being shaped, and should set the terms on which their own knowledge is handled.

Our principles

These follow directly from the ethical principles already set out in our ethics framework.

1. Self-determination comes first

Artificial intelligence does not make decisions about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, communities or Country. It does not decide what a finding is, what a recommendation says, or who is included in a process. Those decisions are made by people, with the communities concerned.

2. Indigenous Data Sovereignty applies to artificial intelligence

Communities own and govern data about them. That does not change because the data is being processed by a machine. Where community data is involved, the governance arrangements agreed for that project govern any use of artificial intelligence on it.

3. Free, prior and informed consent

Where we propose to use artificial intelligence on information that participants have given us, we say so before they give it, in plain terms, as part of the consent process. Consent to take part in a project is not consent to process that material with any tool we choose.

4. A person is always accountable

Every output that leaves Karabena Consulting has been read, checked and approved by a named person who is accountable for it. We do not publish, submit or deliver material that no person has verified. Where an error reaches a client or a community, the accountability is ours, not the tool's.

5. Cultural knowledge is not training data

We do not place cultural knowledge, cultural material, or identifiable community information into systems that would retain it, learn from it, or make it available to others.

6. Transparency

We will tell a client or a community how artificial intelligence was used in work we did for them, if they ask, and in writing. We would rather answer that question than be asked why we did not raise it.

What we use artificial intelligence for

Our own writing and analysis

• Drafting, structuring and editing material that our own people have conceived, and that our own people then check, correct and approve.
• Summarising and organising published literature, policy documents and public data as a first pass, with every source we rely on read and verified by a person before it is cited.
• Supporting transcription and thematic analysis of project material, under the consent and data governance conditions agreed for that project.

Running the business

• Administration, scheduling, correspondence, financial and procurement support.
• Making our published work easier to find, including structured data and accessible text so that search engines, assistive technology and artificial intelligence systems can read what we have actually written rather than infer it.

What we will not use it for

• We will not put identifiable community information into a general purpose artificial intelligence system.
• We will not allow community data to be used to train anyone else's model.
• We will not generate cultural knowledge, language content, artwork or designs, or present anything generated by a machine as the work of an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander artist, author or knowledge holder.
• We will not present generated text as the voice of a community, a participant or an Elder. Quotes are what people said.
• We will not use artificial intelligence to assess, score, rank or screen people.
• We will not use it to replace the employment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in our work, including peer researchers.
• We will not use it to produce a deliverable in a domain where we lack the cultural competence to check the result.

How we handle data

Before a project begins

Where we expect to use artificial intelligence on project material, we raise it during contracting and during the consent process, and we record what was agreed. If a client's own policies prohibit it, their policy governs.

During a project

• Material is de-identified wherever this is possible and appropriate before any processing.
• We do not share raw data with commissioning agencies, and we do not share it with tool providers either. What leaves us is aggregated findings, visualisations and reports.
• Storage and transmission follow the secure data practices already set out in our ethics framework.

Cultural and intellectual property

Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property remains with its owners. Processing material with a tool creates no rights for us, and none for a tool provider. Where a project produces material that draws on cultural knowledge, attribution and permissions are settled with the knowledge holders in the same way they would be for any other output.

Accountability and review

• The Managing Director holds accountability for this statement.
• Staff and contractors are inducted into it and are responsible for raising any use that sits outside it.
• Anyone may raise a concern about our use of artificial intelligence by contacting us at the address below. We will respond in writing.
• This statement will be reviewed annually, or sooner where the technology, the law or community expectations change materially.

Karabena Consulting Trust acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the lands and waters on which we work. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging, and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who guide and inform our work.