Inland Revenue Online Shares Personal Tax Information with Other Users

The Inland Revenue is looking for the glitch that allowed users to see details of others' online tax returns, having closed the site amid a crisis of confidence last week.

Users filing self-assessment tax returns over the internet were able to see confidential information on other taxpayers. The service was being used by about 75 000 people.

In May, the Government proposed a system of fines for companies and individuals who failed to file online by 2010 and the service had been subject of a major advertising campaign. But now the scaleability of the service is being questioned and commentators are observing that the breach of security has implications for people's trust in all kinds of public sector site.

It is one of the additions in the 2002 version of the service - a facility for users to check previous tax returns through secure e-mail inboxes on the Government Gateway - that has been the site of the trouble. Until the design of the Gateway is ruled out as the source of the problem, there is no way of knowing the extent of potential confidentiality breaches.

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