The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union can reveal through an Official Information Act request that Inland Revenue spent $1.967 million on an outbound phone call campaign to encourage taxpayers to adopt two-factor authentication for their myIR accounts.
Taxpayers’ Union Investigations Coordinator, Rhys Hurley, said:
“Too often government departments splash out on marketing campaigns while forgetting it’s taxpayers’ money they’re spending.”
“Inland Revenue is right to strengthen its data security, but spending nearly $2 million on phone calls and staff time raises serious questions for those footing the bill.”
“Even staff questioned whether the campaign was a success, with many recipients dismissing the calls as potential scams. When fraud-prevention calls are mistaken for fraud, something has clearly gone wrong.”
“With two-factor authentication now compulsory anyway, wouldn’t a simple pop-up on IRD’s website and a direct email to users have achieved the same outcome at a fraction of the cost?”
