Administration and appeals: Tax credits error affects 50 000
Personal details of 50 000 tax credits claimants were posted out to strangers in a breach of data security that HMRC blamed on a printing error. Claimants' annual award notices included private information relating to other unrelated claimants. The Register reported that a claimant who received a letter of apology was asked to return the incorrect notice in a stamped addressed envelope. One woman in Greater Manchester said she received a letter that included her neighbour's earnings according to The Times.
HMRC said in a statement: 'HMRC takes data security extremely seriously. Unfortunately an error has occurred in one of the tax credits print runs causing some customer information to be wrongly formatted. Investigations are underway to identify the cause of the problem and we will be contacting affected customers in writing this week apologising and providing a...
