​14 million Australians now have a myGov account

The federal government in 2013 launched its online service portal myGov, touted as a secure way to access government services online with one login and one password.

13 services are currently provided through the portal, including those from Medicare, the Australian Taxation Office, Centrelink, Australian JobSearch, My Health Record, My Aged Care, Child Support, Department of Veterans' Affairs, National Disability Insurance Scheme, and the Victorian Housing Register Application.

Revealed in response to Questions on Notice from Senate Estimates in October, the Department of Human Services (DHS) said as of October 31, 2018, there were 14.4 million myGov accounts.

During the 2015-16 financial year, 2.5 million myGov accounts were established, 2.2 million in 2016-17, and in 2017-2018 1.6 million were created.

DHS also said that from July 1, 2018 to October 31, 2018, Centrelink received 2,494 complaints about the MyGov website.

In the financial year 2017-18, there were 68.2 million navigations from myGov to Centrelink, DHS said.

From July 1, 2017, through May 31, 2018, Centrelink had answered 569,835 calls, and saw nearly 34,000 abandoned which were directly related to the online portal that is meant to make government service delivery easier by avoiding the need to speak to an operator.

The department and the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) in May last year implemented what it called a "significant change to modernise myGov".

Changes made included a modernised look and feel, a mobile-optimised platform, and improved accessibility to myGov to support users of all abilities.

Discussing the up-time of myGov, DHS was asked where the data from myGov is held, with the department saying it's hosted on its owned and operated infrastructure, across two commercially owned datacentres.

"myGov service availability is monitored and reported against regularly," the department's response continued. "For the financial year 2017-18, the service availability was 99.9 percent, which exceeds the myGov service level agreement of 99.5 percent availability.

"The department runs 24x7 service monitoring and operational support, backed by enterprise incident management capabilities."

DHS said the service availability is derived from service monitoring data captured in accordance with the departmental service management policies.

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