The Queensland Department of Child Safety, Youth and Women are warning parents fleeing from domestic violence to deactivate their children’s myGov accounts—out of concern abusive partners can use the portal to locate where spouses and children are living.
An email, circulated by department staff, explains that a group of doctors raised concerns about abusive partners being able to access updated address details of their child through the myGov portal.
Professor Annabel Taylor, from the Queensland Centre for Domestic and Family Violence Research, says the issue surfaced during discussions about the privacy of government-held information, which were made ahead of the My Health Record portal rollout. Professor Taylor says perpetrators try all sorts of means to locate abused partners so any system which may allow this to happen needs to be a concern to authorities.