Taxman could start sharing your records with town halls

TOWN halls could be given access to private information held by the taxman to chase council tax arrears and parking fines.

A law passing through Parliament will create vast new data-sharing powers to help enforce debts owed to the State.

Private information would be shared between government bodies, including Whitehall departments, quangos, agencies like Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and town halls across England and Wales.

Privacy campaigners say the new laws amount to a ‘wholesale attack on privacy’, arguing the law is a reprisal of the ‘ Information Sharing Orders’ drawn up by Labour in 2009 but then abandoned after a public backlash.

Sam Smith from MedConfidential, the privacy campaign group, said: ‘Town hall officials will get access to your tax records on the pretext of helping you pay debts, but they will do so without you knowing and with few safeguards. This is a wholesale attack on privacy’.

Renate Samson, chief executive of Big Brother Watch, said: ‘It is conceivable that local officials will request tax records to investigate why someone hasn’t paid a council-issued fine, such as a parking ticket.’

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said: ‘This law is a massive power grab by councils.’

Campaigners also point to the example of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 which gave police snooping powers to councils which used them to pursue bin ‘crimes’ and monitor whether parents were lying about school catchment areas. Officials say the new powers, which are contained within the Digital Economy Bill, will help recover up to £40billion owed to the State. They insist there are safeguards to protect private information from leaking.

Specific organisations will be allowed ‘to share any data for the purposes of taking action in connection with debt owed to a specified public authority,’ according to documents setting out how the scheme will work.

Among those named as part of the scheme are HMRC – which holds all tax records – and the Department for Work and Pensions which handles tax credits.

Crucially, no one will be able to object to their data being shared, or asked for their consent.

Once the Bill becomes law, councils – and other public bod- ies – will have to conduct pilots of data- sharing powers. They will only get the green light with ministerial approval.

Last night a Downing Street source said: ‘Details are published next week but there will be no return to Labour’s policy of letting councils snoop on people.’

Official documents seen by the Mail reveal the tax powers are wanted to help ‘enhance crossgovernment debt management capability’ and ‘to enable a more informed view of a customer’s individual ability to pay’.

The powers will target ‘customers who have the means to pay their debt, but choose not to’.

However, officials highlight the ‘risk in data loss and associated personal costs to citizens (and) . incorrect use of data.’ Ministers are creating new criminal offences which could mean jail for anyone wrongly using the powers.

A Cabinet Office spokesman said: ‘Changing technology provides the opportunity to deliver better services at lower cost to taxpayers and to cut government waste.

‘None of these proposals will allow council snooping or powers to spy on people: it’s allowing one bit of government to share (existing) data with another part of government.

‘ We want to be able to do things like target fuel poverty to give financial support to those most in need so they aren’t cold in their homes, and clamp down hard on criminal acts of benefit fraud.’