Parents fleeing domestic violence are being urged to deactivate their children's myGov accounts, amid concerns abusive partners can use the portal to discover where spouses and children are living.

An email circulated by staff at the Queensland Department of Child Safety, Youth and Women has warned that a group of doctors had raised concerns about abusive partners being able to access the updated address details of their child through the Federal Government's myGov portal.

"With this platform there is no way to protect addresses at this stage," the email said.

"It is encouraged for parents fleeing violence to deactivate their account to reduce the ability to track their new address."

The email urged recipients in the support service industry to pass on the advice through their networks.

The myGov portal allows users to access a range of government services including Centrelink, Medicare, Child Support and the Australian Tax Office.

Children over the age of 14 can have their own account to lodge Medicare claims and access immunisation history statements.

Parents with access to their child's myGov account could therefore view updated residential addresses.

Professor Annabel Taylor from the Queensland Centre for Domestic and Family Violence Research said the myGov issue came up during discussions among those in the sector about the privacy of government-held information, ahead of the rollout of the Federal Government's My Health Record portal.

"Perpetrators will seek to find and locate their partner or ex-partner because the nature of domestic violence is this intense desire to control or exert power over the other partner," Professor Taylor said.

"Perpetrators try all sorts of means in order to try and locate [abused partners] so any system, including myGov, which may allow this to happen needs to be a concern to authorities in terms of risk and safety."

She said the portal posed a significant risk to victims.

"If he can access the health information of his children, he can therefore locate and work out where they may be located," Professor Taylor said.

"Any governmental data collection system that allows access to various individuals needs to have protections in place for victims of domestic violence."

The myGov portal could allow abusive partners to track down victims. ( ABC News: Nick Wiggins )

Department warns parents, children to change passwords

Professor Taylor said people working in the support service sector have been raising concerns with state and federal governments for some time.

"We've had a series of really tragic deaths in Australia in the last fortnight and we've all got to be really concerned about the access that a perpetrator may have in terms of the private information and location of the victim," she said.

"We're talking about lethal violence here."

In a statement, Department of Human Services general manager Hank Jongen said they took the matter very seriously and that supporting people affected by family and domestic violence remained a priority.

"We are aware of the difficult circumstances many of our customers face and we are committed to ensuring people receive the support they need, when and where they need it," he said.

"If a parent suspects their child has shared their myGov sign-in details with anybody, they should ask them to change their password and myGov PIN immediately."

A spokesperson for the Queensland Child Safety Department said myGov was a matter for the Federal Government.

"Shared online platforms where both parties in a relationship can access information create a potential risk that victim information could be accessed," they said.

"When the Department receives information from other agencies that could be useful to services providers this information is passed on."