(Host) State officials say they’ve identified the three people who, due to a computer glitch, accessed the personal tax data of more than 1,300 people and businesses.
Each week the Vermont Department of Taxes releases a report online that lists property tax information used by some real estate professionals. Within two hours after posting that file on Monday, the department says it realized it was corrupted and took it down.
The department says two of the three people who found the data couldn’t even open it, since it was corrupted.
Vermont’s tax commissioner Mary Peterson is confident that the risk of identity theft in this incident will be minimal.
(Peterson) "We know exactly how long the page was up. We know exactly how many people accessed it. We’ve spoken to those three parties and the information has been destroyed."
(Host) Now, Peterson says the department is investigating what happened and is planning to put in additional safeguards.
(Peterson) "It was a really unfortunate and unlikely chain of events that led to this but of course we’ve put in place even more procedure to make sure it doesn’t happen again."
(Host) Taxpayers whose social security and employee identification numbers were released will receive a letter from the Department of Taxes by this Saturday, January 14th. The state has also set up a hotline if taxpayers have questions
Department of Taxes hotline: 866 348 4038, email: tax.dataProtect@state.vt.us