Protecting your account
Service Victoria helps keep your personal info and your identity safe with easy to use account protection tools.
If you're making a new account, we'll walk you through the setup steps. If you already have an account, you should see prompts to turn on account security next time you log in.
Here's what you need to do to help keep your account secure with multi-factor authentication:
- Choose your authentication method (either an app or text message)
- Verify your authentication method
- Set up a recovery method (either secret questions or another authentication method)
If you run into any issues, check below for help.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Your Service Victoria account can hold sensitive info that needs an extra level of protection.
You can't use account security or access a Service Victoria account without a mobile phone.
Multi-factor authentication adds an extra layer of security to your account.
When you create an account, we'll ask you to choose an authentication method (either an authenticator app or text message).
Every time you log in, we'll send a verification code to this method to confirm it's you.
If you ever get locked out, we'll also send a recovery code to your chosen method. You can always add more authentication methods to further protect your account as well.
Some trusted apps include Google Authenticator, Apple Passwords, and Microsoft Authenticator. You can download these from your app store.
If you set up an authenticator app, we'll provide you with a set of 10 recovery codes. Store these codes somewhere safe and use them if you ever need to log in without your device.
If you lose your recovery codes, you'll have to reset your authenticator app.
You can use secret questions to unlock your account if you can't use your phone.
We'll ask you to set up these questions when you first register for an account with us, or you can set them up in your account settings, as long as you have text message as an authentication method.
You can tell us to trust a phone or computer when you log in from somewhere new. We won't ask again for a year. You can do this on up to five devices.
If you need help creating a strong password, use our password checker tool.
If you forget your password, you can reset it after getting verification codes to your chosen authentication method.
If you can't access the phone you use for verification codes, you can use your secret questions or one of your 10 recovery codes to get back into your account.
We ask personal questions that only you would know the answer to. Your answers should be unique and easy to remember, so no one can guess them easily.
We don't store the answers with your other account info. There's no way to connect them back to your details. Our system encrypts these answers to protect your privacy.