HMRC sends private data by accident

Friday, May 28, 2010

HM Revenue and Customs has suffered another embarrassing data loss after it was revealed that the private details of up to 50,000 people were sent out by post.

Individuals were apparently sent other people's personal data in the post along with their annual award notice.

A woman from Greater Manchester told the BBC that she had received a letter that included her neighbour's earnings.

An HMRC spokesman confirmed the incident and said it was a printing error. He also played down the likelihood of increased identity theft as a result.

He said: "Unfortunately an error has occurred in one of the tax credits print runs causing some customer information to be wrongly formatted.

"Investigations are under way to identify the cause of the problem and we will be contacting affected customers in writing this week, apologising and providing a corrected award notice.

"An initial analysis shows that ID theft could not result from this printing error."