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The campaign for a duty of care to be imposed on HMRC has won momentum from figures showing almost 200 of its staff hacked into taxpayers’ personal accounts. Over the 12 months of last year, 192 tax officials lost their jobs at the department or were internally disciplined for “accessing customer records outside their duties.” During a ten-month period, 44 officials – the equivalent of one each week, were sacked for wrongly snooping someone’s records, according to the figures, seen by a Sunday paper. The embarrassment for the Revenue comes one month after its handling of personal tax records was deemed “woefully inadequate” by an independent review. Yet the number of staff sacked or punished for wrongly snooping taxpayers’ details has fallen overall, from 238 officials in 2005, down to 180 in 2006. Some accessed data on their family or friends, while others sought information about people they disliked, reported the Mail on Sunday, which saw the figures. Reflecting to the paper, Tory MP James Brokenshire said: “It is shocking that so many public officials have been sacked or disciplined for wrongly accessing people’s personal details “It underlines why the Conservatives believe that the reckless handling of personal data by government officials should be made a criminal offence.” Chancellor Alistair Darling has said HMRC will spend £15m over the next three years to reduce the risk of future security breaches involving taxpayers’ details. Separately, the department has warned that fraudsters are using its name and logo in a new round of phishing emails that request customers’ bank account details for a tax repayment. Jul 7, 2008 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
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