Fergie's Tech Blog

IRS audits its database for breaches

A Reuters newswire report on CNN/Money reveals that:

The Internal Revenue Service is investigating whether unauthorized people gained access to sensitive taxpayer and bank account information but has not yet exposed any privacy breaches, officials said Friday.

The tax agency -- whose databases include suspicious activity reports from banks about possible terrorist or criminal transactions -- launched the probe after the Government Accountability Office said in April the IRS "routinely permitted excessive access" to the computer files.

The GAO team was able to tap into the data without authorization and gleaned information such as bank account holders' names, Social Security numbers, transaction values, and any suspected terrorist activity. It said the data was at serious risk of disclosure, modification or destruction.

posted by Fergie @ 6/25/2005 04:45:00 PM