In the aftermath of "VIP Taxpayers List" scandal the Tax Authority is to implement a set of data protection measures that will end up costing €5 million by 2017.
In an astounding admission of poor practice and outmoded systems, half of this sum is for a ‘computerised method of monitor workers’ access to data,’ which most assumed existed, until the VIP Taxpayers' List scandal erupted.
There currently is no way of recording who has looked at what information and this admission from the Tax Authority management shows the poor state of government computer system which citizens and the treasury rely on for accurate and timely information.
The Tax Authority also promises to justify how and why external companies had and still have access to these most sensitive sets of data.
Part of the VIP Taxpayer List inquiry showed the plethora of external companies and parties having full access to taxpayer records without solid justification.
The National Data Protection Commission report and the Finance General Inspection report into the VIP affair both were highly critical of the Treasury's lack of care and action with regard to the protection of taxpayer information.
The Secretary of State for Fiscal Affairs, Paulo Núncio asked the Tax Authority to submit a set of measures to resolve the situation which he received last Friday.
The cunning plan to keep taxpayer records secure and to allow only those with genuine interest to access data now has been submitted.
Basic record keeping, including workers filling in a field to indicate why they are looking at a particular record, seem part of the brave new world for the Tax Authority which until recently was trusted to act impartially and accurately when dealing with its customers when in fact was running a system with few access controls.
This lamentably old-fashioned expectation of privacy hid the truth of a department riddled with poor systems, sly management, un-monitored external access to records and free for all when it came to looking at tax records without justification.
The ‘dozens of new measures’ promised are too little too late to retain the public’s trust and the game is up for a department whose unions have long campaigned without success for computer upgrades.
The discovery that the current systems are locked in the technology of the past simply is not acceptable for a country which is trying to modernise.
