Victoria jumps on board with myGov

The Victorian Government is set to become the first state to sign up to the Commonwealth’s myGov portal, established to provide a single authentication platform to access a range of online services from Medicare rebates to tax refunds.

Victoria yesterday released its refreshed whole-of-government IT strategy, which sets out the state’s technology priorities for 2014 and 2015.

One of the new plan's aims is to have a minimum of five agencies delivering services through the myGov portal by the end of December this year.

“We want to become a member service through myGov and will be in discussions with the Department of Human Servcies about how we can best use the platform going forward,” chief technology advocate Grantly Mailes told iTnews.

When the switch takes place, Victorians with a myGov account will be able to use these credentials to access state-based transactions side-by-side with services operated by Commonwealth agencies.

The partnership will not require any back office integration between Victorian and Commonwealth systems, beyond the authentication stage of the transaction. While Victorian online services will be set up to accept myGov credentials, myGov will not inversely accept native Victorian Government user credentials.

So far, only federal agencies have partnered up with myGov operator the Department of Human Services to deliver services through the portal.

The Australian Taxation Office is the most recent member, which means since early this month a myGov account has been needed to access ATO online services.

myGov is also the authentication gateway into the personally controlled electronic health record, which is soon to be re-badged ‘myHR’ to align with the portal branding.

Services from the Department of Veteran’s Affairs, the National Disability Insurance Scheme as well as Medicare, Centrelink and child support payments are also available through the portal.

The myGov platform’s remit and user base could expand rapidly in the near future, if the Commonwealth goes ahead with a controversial recommendation of the National Commission of Audit to make myGov the default gateway for all online government services.

The government has yet to respond to the recommendation.