Fraud danger as tax credit office hands out secret details of cases

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Wed 5th Jul 2006

"Another example of incompetent administration."

The Government fiasco over the payment of tax credits took a new twist this week with the revelation that tax officials have released confidential data by mistake.

The recordings of telephone conversations with tax credit claimants were released in error after an Eastleigh constituent was so infuriated by the department's inefficiency that she insisted on having a log of her conversations.

The department sent a log and a CD of her conversations, including recordings of other conversations along with hers, inadvertently releasing highly sensitive information that could enable identity theft.

"This is another example of incompetent administration of tax credits, the flagship project of Gordon Brown that has an untarnished record of incompetence.

"But it is also worrying from the point of view of ID cards, because our confidential information is clearly not safe in government hands. If the tax credits administration cannot keep confidential information secret, why on earth should much more sensitive data stored on ID cards be safe?" said Chris Huhne MP for Eastleigh. "There are clearly no adequate checks about maintaining confidentiality as my constituent's CD includes conversations from a Scottish lady and an Asian man from Leicester.

The constituent said "It shocked me that no checking procedure is in place to stop others listening to other people's private conversations. It is a real mess."