IRS Employees Sent Sensitive Taxpayer Info to Their Personal Email Accounts

[Valin]

Washington Free Beacon:

8,031 taxpayers' personally identifiable information exposed through unencrypted emails

Ali Meyer

November 17, 2016

 

IRS employees sent emails with sensitive taxpayer information to their own personal email accounts, according to an audit from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

 

The inspector general found that there were six IRS employees who failed to follow the rules and sent unencrypted emails containing taxpayers’ personally identifiable information to their personal email, which risked exposing that information to unauthorized individuals.

 

Additionally, from May to June 2015, 49 percent of IRS employees in the small business and self-employed division sent 326 unencrypted emails containing 8,031 different taxpayers’ personally identifiable information to other IRS employees and other non-IRS email accounts.

 

Personally identifiable information is defined as anything that can be used to trace an individual’s identify such as Social Security numbers, birth dates, or tax return information. According to the report, the loss, theft, or unauthorized disclosure of this information places individuals at risk for invasion of privacy and identify theft.

 

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