The status of William Tyrrell has been made public after a Court of Appeal decision this week obtained by Nine Network's A Current Affair Program.
"The Department of Family and Community Services (FACS) was deeply saddened to hear about the disappearance of the child in 2014," a department spokesman told AAP on Friday.
Dressed in a Spiderman outfit, William was playing in the garden when he vanished from a home in the small NSW mid-north coast town of Kendall on September 12, 2014.
Legal restrictions prevented the publication of the fact that William was in out-of-home care at the time of his disappearance but a NSW Supreme Court judge has said the matter was of "legitimate public interest".
There are almost 20,000 children in out-of-home care in NSW but state legislation provides certain restrictions on publication of their names and identifying information.
