More than 6,500 Kiwis demand answers from IRD

More than 6,500 taxpayers have filed requests under the Privacy Act to find out if their personal information was leaked to Facebook, Google, and other social media and tech companies, as part of IRD's enormous data breach that saw taxpayer information handed over for 'marketing' purposes.

Taxpayers' Union Spokesman, Sam Warren, said:

“This is the biggest breach of taxpayer privacy in New Zealand’s history, and we are only hearing crickets.  Why hasn’t the Minister fronted on this yet, is he on holiday?

“Heads should be rolling at Inland Revenue.  Unlike when you voluntarily provide data to third parties, Kiwis have no choice with IRD and are required to by law.  With this comes the expectation of trust, which has been completely betrayed.  Now there is no telling where your information might be.

"New Zealanders want to know whether their personal information has been given to overseas tech companies.  In 24-hours, more than 6,500 submissions have been made on IRD-Leak.nz, demanding answers under the Privacy Act.

“The Privacy Act allows 20-working days for IRD to provide answers, but in reality, it should take no longer than a few days.  They obviously have the information in digital form, it's a matter of simply data-matching to the spreadsheets they've already uploaded to Facebook."