The taxman snoops

Canadian Press reports:

'Dozens of workers at Canada Revenue Agency have been caught snooping on their ex-spouses, mothers-in-law, creditors and others by reading confidential tax files.

Internal reports show that rogue employees are improperly reviewing the private financial affairs of taxpayers without their knowledge.

And some are using agency computers to give favoured treatment to colleagues, friends, family and themselves a Canadian Press investigation shows.

In one flagrant breach last October, a woman accessed 37,500 e-mails and 776 documents containing confidential financial information about ordinary Canadians. That investigation continues.

She downloaded the files onto 17 compact discs for her personal use, inexplicably helped by agency technicians.

Documents outlining the forbidden invasions into private tax data were obtained under Canada's Access to Information Act.

In one case, a worker secretly operated a business on the side with her spouse, and between 2004 and 2009 "accessed the accounts of two creditors and the spouse of one of those creditors."

The abuses were discovered by internal investigators with CRA.

Another worker was found to have inspected his spouse's tax information 69 times without permission. A woman in one unidentified office poked into the agency's data looking for confidential information on colleagues, friends and family -- apparently to give them a break on their taxes.

"The employee made unauthorized access to the tax information of three colleagues and to the tax information of a colleague's daughter, spouse and mother," says one report.

"She accessed her own tax information and the tax information (of) 13 relatives ... She provided preferential treatment to colleagues, relatives and acquaintances."

Agency gumshoes then stumbled on a secret cell of snoopers in the same location.

"The investigation also determined that 13 other employees of the same office made unauthorized accesses to taxpayer information. Of the 13 employees, 10 provided preferential treatment to taxpayers, five accessed their own tax information, four received preferential treatment ..."

Another worker peeked at secret agency information about two companies she operated on the side -- while those firms were undergoing tax audits.

"In addition, the employee made extensive unauthorized accesses to the taxpayer information of friends and family members and hundreds of other individuals."

Yet another investigation found an employee peering into the electronic tax files of two of her spouse's business partners, though the motive is not specified.

The documents show that ex-spouses are sometimes targeted, for reasons not made clear in the heavily censored material from September and October last year. Family members were also a favoured target.

Some workers who were caught claimed they were simply helping relatives file their income-tax forms.

But one worker admitted using the CRA computer system and confidential tax information to issue himself a false charitable donation receipt for $3,000, thus reducing his income-tax payable.

Agency records for 2008-2009 show there were 29 cases in which workers were caught accessing taxpayer records without authorization, about the annual average for the last five years. And there were a dozen instances in 2008-2009 in which tax records were improperly disclosed to third parties.

All information about disciplinary measures taken against staff who broke the rules is censored in the released documents. But in several cases, the agency appeared to be lenient with long-term employees.

"The employee admitted that she accessed the taxpayer information belonging to a former employer, her relatives including her mother, her father, her sister and her brother, as well as the information belonging to her former spouse," says one report.

In deciding on discipline, "management took into consideration the employee's years of service, her good employment record and her co-operation with the investigation."

A spokesperson said the number of breaches is relatively small, given there are 40,000 employees.'

What do you think? Should tax department staff caught snooping be fire, with cause? Should Revenue Canada disclose what it is doing to discipline such workers?

Comments

[scott]

No government employee has the right to snoop into or about the personal lives of the citizens http://www.yourrights.org.uk/yourrights/privacy/index.html Nor does the government when they do they are breaking the law .

[Ed2]

One year I received a very high tax refund, which should have been confidential.

Within 5 weeks I had 6 pre-approved credit cards from the big names received in the mail with a note to call in from my home phone number to activate it, all without one letter of the alphabet placed upon an application. Next were the banks calling me with offers of investment opportunities and most knew the range of my refund. Next in the mail were countless major store cards to activate by a simple phone call. Also, charities called by the dozens for weeks.

When I called Rev-Can, they stone-walled me with information about who accessed my account, what information had obviously been release as if I had a Publicity Agent, and would not give me one form of identification of who accessed my account even though we know an operator or rep number is recorded each time the account is opened.

CCRA is now a telemarketers dream file and this recent item is the tip of a massive scandal ridden Privacy Iceberg.

As a side note; I received insurance coverage while off for medical reasons and the company claimed my income was after taxes. When tax time arrived they sent me a notice to file and taxes were not deducted. I immediately began to pay in portions the outstanding $2700.00 in taxes and by 6 weeks past the filing deadline had paid off $1100.00. I had an insurance rep contact Rev-Can to explain their mistaken information to me and my reward was to have my bank account seized 8 weeks after filing deadlines. At the bank I had to borrow $5000.00 as their minimum loan amount to pay off $2700.00 in full because Rev-Can agents said they do not post payments for 90 days even though it was out of my bank account. One month after full payment by a loan my $1100.00 refund arrived by cheque since my previous payments were calculated as an overpayment.

I wrote to Otto Jelinek, then Minister of Finance, and he was helpful but the account seizure took place during this period of sorting out difficulties.

My bank manager claimed that someone was purposely targeting me as their own bank had customers who owed at least one $100,000.00 for years and did not have any issues even though they made not one cent of payment.

Again, this latest revelation has verified that a lot of supposedly trusted people have been using accounts for their own personal agenda. And by the way, I never did find out why I was the chosen one to be hammered over a Corporate mistake where I took the fall when trying to sort it out.

[jeanette mcmanus]

i just heard that ONE of the tax employees had to go home early because they could not stop laughing, due to finding out the average wage earners pay taxes from january to july which amounts to 7/12th of their annual income, then the government have the adaucity to grab PST,GST,HST when they go shopping, even shopping in charity shops there is tax on the very goods which have been donated and already have paid tax on,... the english have a saying it goes,...."yer 'aving a laff!"

[minisam]

These employees will be fired...with no compensation. They will grieve it, the union will not back them and in the end, they will not win. CRA is VERY tough on accessing the database without cause.

[HARPER + MCGUINTY = HST SOCIALISM]

I agree, terminate and press criminal charges for these lewd invasions of privacy. It's different if an employee has a task pertaining to someone's file. To snoop on individuals which have no relation to the employee's task at hand IS criminal. KS, I have to disagree with you. The only people working for the state are those who plead ignorance... Otherwise they would not be hired. It's a huge inbred circle of incompetence where no one individually can be named for being at fault. It's a shell game really. And here we have Jean Chretian telling young people not to be so critical of politicians' scandals... This coming from the guy who literally paid Quebec unknown millions to stay apart of Canada. I recently discovered that in Canada you don't need to have english on a product but there are laws stating YOU MUST HAVE FRENCH (or the Quebec french dialect which is NOT the french we are taught in school). Anyway, interesting advice coming from Mr. Chretian, I think he would reverse his opinion swiftly were the politician being criticized from a party other than the Liberano$. Wake up Jean, the reason we don't want to vote, pay more taxes, or fill out your census forms is because we found out you all work for the same self-centered objectives!!! By the way, special thanks to Stephen Harper for borrowing millions from Eurpoean globalist banking cartels so he could pitch in and help Uncle Dalton send me $100 in the mail. You are a disgrace to this province Stephen Harper and a disgrace to the term "financial conservatism" you international dead-beat borrower.

[ernest]

Oops i forgot.Wait a few days and this will all be forgotten about then we can go back to business as usual.

[ernest]

Don't forget to pay your taxes.

[Bealzubub]

Not only will none of these individuals be fired or charged but they will receive promotions and raises for any harm or embarassment this investigation may have caused to them.

[brian bartlett]

not only should they be termininated but criminal charges should be laid

[KS]

If we can't rely on the government to maintain privacy of our personal information, then who else can we rely on? Regardless of how long the person has been an employee of Revenue Canada, they should all get the same punishment (I vote for termination)across the board. There should be a "0" tolerance, especially when it comes to government jobs. They hold most of our personal information in their hands. Who knows how long those long term employees have been doing this! These people are adults and know better. And if they plead ignorance then they shouldn't be working for the government at all. This is extremely serious to a lot of individuals in who's files have been breached of confidentialty. They have every right to know if their personal information has been breached, in addition who those people were that snooped in their file. Our government is too easy on those who committed fraud/violation to others. Why are they being protected? If those guilty individuals felt it was ok in doing what they did, then they should have no problem in having themselves exposed. Very disappointing, unfortunately, as usual.

[GIVE ME LIBERTY]

This reminds me of the RCMP stating that outlaw biker gangs like the hell's angels have infiltrated the Canadian Revenue Agency and are using tax info to find out the addresses of those they need to "locate". I've also heard that they're hiring Canadian Soldiers because they have good shooting skills. Why should I have to tell the government anything? Be it whether I own a weapon or where I live??? I think this information is falling into the wrong hands time and time again. A relative of mine has a boyfriend who is a detective with the Hamilton Police Services. I've been told that the second he meets someone new, he looks their name up in a database to find out what kind of a record they have,,, Whether it be a doctor, neighbour, or co-worker even. I guess my complaints fall on deaf ears in this country... Apparently the majority of Canadians don't care that Stephen Harper just pushed forward with the billion dollar police state. I used to vote conservative but this is the last straw. Harper is as much a mad-spending socialist as McGuinty or any of those "opposition" clowns. They're all a coalition called Friends of the New World Order.

[Aly]

I'd love to know why 7% of the people who have voted think this is okay. Unless of course they are the type that would do such a thing.

[Mandy]

Why SHOULDN'T they be terminated? They broke the rules, they deserve to get punished. Some were playing the system to help their friends, others were spying on their exes. That's wrong.
But I guess as long as you work there for a few years, it doesn't matter what you do wrong.

[Janet]

This is a no-brainer, of course they should lose their jobs. Not only should we know about it, but the people whose private information was viewed or used for personal reasons should get some recourse. With identity theft and computer fraud rampant, this is unconscionable. Some people get fired for going on Facebook at work.

[jeanette mcmanus]

these employees must be bored, ...its as bad as rooting around in the homes of these people looking for bank books or wallets, yet if anyone would enquire how a patient is doing in a hospital the enquirer must be a family member and show identification,.... no,.. these snoops will not be fired,... they know too much there are bigger fish to fry.!

[st]

I truly thought there was no such thing as privacy anymore,that any one at any time with the mind to find interest in some ones somthing could just with no justification but there own snoop.This i think is human nature,though should be stopped,thus a more stringent move to ensure the proper security,for any and all peoples private buisness.As far as the workers in this situation i think they should be fired,with it on there employment records,and it should be made public.

[Gene Simmons]

Fire them with cause. TODAY. Totally disgusting.

[Chris]

Each and everyone of them should be fired....this is breach of trust and should not get any severence. I know I worked for one of the major banks a number of years ago and our security found one of my staff reviewing a neighbour's banking over a short period of time and that person was walked out on the spot...no severence nothing.

And yes, Rev Can should be telling us what the disipline they are doing...more than likely, not one will be fired.

[Peter Swire CMA]

As a taxpayer, I expect fairness, transparency, objectivity and confidentiality.

In order to be objective, the tax auditor should not know the person he or she is reviewing. It is this independence that avoids any potential issue of conflict of interest.

To "snoop" on friends and family is morally repugnant and the offenders should be held accountable.

Politicans and the civil servants must be held to very high standards. These snoopers should be shown the door now.

[Old Fart]

Of course they should be terminated without severance. They abused their powers & privileges & invaded the lives of private citizens. They've lost the trust of the public & brought shame & scorn upon their fellow employees & their employer.

They probably won't be punished publicly, but quietly allowed to resign with handsome rewards. Those whose personal information was compromised will never know it happened & everyone will be suspect.

[give me liberty]

Why aren't they already?

[J Laberge]

In the wrong hands any government information could have very dire consequences. employees should be screened and monitored very closely. this is outrageous,they caught some of them, you can det there's more. prison terms would prove a deterent.

[Markalanwhittle]

Every single one of them should be fired with just cause and charged under the criminal code for breaking privacy laws.

Heads should roll, but won't thanks to union considerations and the power they wield.

[kathy Hagan]

If employees are guilty of breaching confidentiality policies then the penalty should fit the crime. I do not think there should be a blanket knee jerk response and certainly employers should be up front with any person who is under investigation. That said I think that many politicians routinely break confidentiality rules and they too should be held accountable.