Workers at the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) have been accused of accessing the confidential tax files of spouses, colleagues, church members and businesses without permission.
According to CBC News, despite the roll-out of a CAN$10.2 million (US$6.74 million) project called the Enterprise Fraud Management Solution at the end of March 2017 to track and deter employees from unauthorised snooping, 10 months of internal reports apparently show the files of at least 10,000 Canadians were compromised by staff, who abused their privileged access to government databases. Last year, one worker in the CRA's Calgary office kept a detailed spreadsheet of the financial data of 310 people in his community.
A 10 October 2017 CRA report said: "The investigation concluded that the employee made unauthorised accesses to his own account, and to a total of 310 other taxpayer accounts, including the employee's spouse, mother, former Team Leader, and two colleagues. The employee kept the information of the 310 individuals on a spreadsheet in his 'H' drive in order to keep track of who lived in his community."
In total, CBC News obtained details of 14 significant privacy breaches that were serious enough to be reported to the Federal Privacy Commissioner. Ten were the work of rogue employees, while the rest involved inadvertent disclosures, such as a box of files being sent to the wrong address. None of the cases was referred to police.
The breaches usually consisted of the disclosure of social insurance numbers, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, marital status, income, deductions and employment information, all of which is standard information on annual tax forms.
About 60% of CRA's 40,000 or so employees have access to taxpayer files. A spokesperson said the Agency has been stepping up its employee monitoring and limiting their ability to see data that was not relevant to their work.
Emma Woollacott is a freelance business journalist. Her work has appeared in a wide range of publications, including the Guardian, the Times, Forbes and the BBC.
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Workers at the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) have been accused of accessing the confidential tax files of spouses, colleagues, church members and businesses without permission.
According to CBC News, despite the roll-out of a CAN$10.2 million (US$6.74 million) project called the Enterprise Fraud Management Solution at the end of March 2017 to track and deter employees from unauthorised snooping, 10 months of internal reports apparently show the files of at least 10,000 Canadians were compromised by staff, who abused their privileged access to government databases. Last year, one worker in the CRA's Calgary office kept a detailed spreadsheet of the financial data of 310 people in his community.
A 10 October 2017 CRA report said: "The investigation concluded that the employee made unauthorised accesses to his own account, and to a total of 310 other taxpayer accounts, including the employee's spouse, mother, former Team Leader, and two colleagues. The employee kept the information of the 310 individuals on a spreadsheet in his 'H' drive in order to keep track of who lived in his community."
In total, CBC News obtained details of 14 significant privacy breaches that were serious enough to be reported to the Federal Privacy Commissioner. Ten were the work of rogue employees, while the rest involved inadvertent disclosures, such as a box of files being sent to the wrong address. None of the cases was referred to police.
The breaches usually consisted of the disclosure of social insurance numbers, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, marital status, income, deductions and employment information, all of which is standard information on annual tax forms.
About 60% of CRA's 40,000 or so employees have access to taxpayer files. A spokesperson said the Agency has been stepping up its employee monitoring and limiting their ability to see data that was not relevant to their work.
Emma Woollacott is a freelance business journalist. Her work has appeared in a wide range of publications, including the Guardian, the Times, Forbes and the BBC.
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Canada Revenue Agency charges tax protestors with fraud
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