On Thursday the Federal Government announced its digital economy strategy ahead of the 2021 Budget. And a cool $200.1 million will be injected into a MyGov upgrade, including a new chat bot.
The government has said that it wants myGov to “deliver a simpler and more tailored experience for Australians based on their preferences and interactions, through streamlined and enhanced digital delivery of the government services they need.”
At the present time the government has said that these changes will include an advanced service dashboard and a document upload functionality that will allow for management of payment, claims, debt status and activities.
A new chat bot will also be added. It is being positioned as a digital assistant with notification functionality that is said to “[make] it easier for Australians to find the services that meet their needs, whether that be seeking childcare providers or disaster relief support.”
According to the strategy these enhancement will “generate benefits across the economy totalling $3.6 billion over 10 years.”
Let’s hope that some of the cash will also be used to prevent outages.
It’s unclear when these changes will roll out. But they follow some changes that were introduced last year.
At the end of 2020 the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) rolled myGovID as an option for logging into myGov accounts.
myGovID is a digital identification system that was was first trialled off the back of the 2020 Budget.
It allows users to log into government online services without a password. You can then authorise it to work with your government services of choice. For example, The Australian Tax Office (ATO), MyGov or the Department of Education’s Student Portal.
It was also announced today that the controversial My Health Record will also be getting a $301.8 million in the 2021 Federal Budget. Part of this will be used to incorporate COVID-19 test results as well as vaccine information.