Tom Ely reports:
Inland Revenue’s apology for giving Meta, the owner of Facebook, the names, addresses, and other contact details of 268,000 taxpayers is “not good enough,” according to a Tauranga resident who wishes to remain anonymous.
“There should be compensation,” they said.
Data was shared with social media platforms using custom audience lists to better target customers regarding their entitlements and obligations, Peter Mersi, the commissioner of the Inland Revenue Department (IRD), said.
“In the course of our work, we are required to make every effort to contact customers about their entitlements and obligations,” Mersi said.
“That requirement is included in our legislation, and it’s what drives our efforts to use the most effective and efficient means of communicating with people.”
Read more at Sunlive and see what you think. Did IRD do the right thing when they started using social media to contact customers? And if they did do the right thing in 2013, did it remain the right thing, or at some point should they have considered the privacy implications and stopped sharing information with Meta?