Why we collect, use and disclose information

We collect, use and disclose your information:

• to administer myGov
• to send you messages
• to let you update your details
• for other reasons.

To administer myGov

We collect, use and disclose your personal information in order to operate the myGov service. This includes:

• letting you create and sign in to your myGov account
• giving you access to myGov Inbox messages and the myGov app wallet
• displaying information about your myGov profile on your personalised homepage
• updating your name and date of birth in your myGov profile after you've made a change with a linked service
• letting you update your details with linked services
• letting you link services to your myGov account
• letting you connect, sign in to, or create your myGov account using a Digital ID
• letting you view some claims and payments from a linked service on your personalised homepage
• letting you upload documents after you access a linked service.

We may disclose the following information to your linked services:

• your name
• your date of birth
• your email address
• your mobile phone number
• the source of information in your myGov profile.

We would do this so you can:

• link services to your myGov account
• access your linked services through your myGov account
• update your contact details held by linked services
• complete tasks in the myGov app
• request a certificate in the myGov app
• add certificates to your myGov app wallet.

We may collect, use or disclose your personal information to detect and investigate suspected unlawful activity within myGov. We may collect information for this purpose from a linked service. Or, we may collect it from the Australian Government Digital ID System Administrator (AGDIS Administrator) if you connect a Digital ID to myGov.

We may also collect personal information from linked services to provide services you ask for while using myGov.

To send you messages

We collect, use and disclose your personal information to provide you with the myGov message service to:

• allow you to receive online messages from linked services
• notify you by email or text message to your preferred email address or mobile number when you receive a new message or task from a linked service
• notify you by app notifications to your mobile device
• send a message to any other email address or mobile number we hold if we can’t notify you by your preferred method
• tell the service if we can’t send you an email, text message or app notification about a new message from them
• tell the service when you access a message from them.

The emails, text messages or app notifications we send you may include information with:

• the linked service name that sent you the message
• what the message is about.

You may have concerns about other people accessing or seeing this information on your device. You should review and update your device's security settings.

To let you update your details

We may collect, use and disclose your personal information to let you update your details with linked services. This includes telling your services about updates to your details such as your name, date of birth and contact details.

To let you upload documents

Services Australia may collect, use and disclosure your personal information when you upload documents to your relevant linked service in myGov.

If your document has been retrieved by the linked service, you’ll receive a message in your myGov Inbox.

If the linked service doesn’t retrieve your document for any reason, it will be deleted after 24 hours.

To verify your identity

When you call the myGov helpdesk, we may need to access your myGov account. 

Before we access your account, you may need to give us details from your identity documents to help us verify your identity. This could include your driver licence or passport information. 

We use the Australian Government’s Document Verification Service to check the identification information you give us. 

We’ll never ask for details from your identity documents through:

• email 
• text message  
• direct message on social media.

For more information, go to our scams page.

Other collections, uses and disclosures

We may also collect, use and disclose your personal information:

• where you have consented to the collection, use or disclosure for that purpose
• to allow a linked service to detect and investigate suspected unlawful activity
• to validate and make enhancements to myGov
• to allow the AGDIS Administrator to perform functions related to fraud management if you have connected a Digital ID
• where the law requires or authorises us to collect, use or disclose your information for that purpose, including investigating suspected unlawful activity.

We may collect use and disclose your personal information to allow you to participate in the Newborn enrolment trial. This includes identifying your myGov account, creating a task for you to advise the name of your baby and processing the task. Any personal information collected during participation in the trial will not be stored by myGov, but will be passed to the relevant linked service.

We do not usually disclose personal information collected for myGov to overseas recipients.