Inland Revenue's Online Filing Security Flaw Fixed

by Robert Lee, Tax-News.com, London

17 July 2002

It hasn't been a good few weeks for the Inland Revenue's online tax filing service.

Although the security flaw which caused the service to be withdrawn on 27 May has now been fixed, a recent poll of the UK's Association of Chartered Accountants has revealed that even when the internet tax filing system is working on top form, a mere 5% of ACCA members are inclined to use it to file returns for clients.

Speaking to the Accountancy Age news service with regard to the technical glitches recently experienced by the online gateway, a Revenue spokesman admitted that the security breaches which affected the tax service (namely that users were permitted to view the details of other taxpayers) could affect other government services.

'We are in discussion with other government offices where we believe it could affect them, although it would not affect many,' he told the news service, explaining that the problem has been identified as the way in which an - as yet unnamed - internet service provider interacted with government gateway security.

'The way in which the session cookie identifying the user was managed meant that it could, in certain rare circumstances, be presented to another user,' he revealed. This confirms comments made by the government's e-envoy, Andrew Pinder last month, who told a meeting of the public accounts committee that an obscure 'technical standard' was responsible for the foul-up.

Accountancy Age reported on Monday that although only 13 taxpayers have so far confirmed seeing other users' details on the self-assessment site, the details of up to 665 individuals could have been compromised, according to the site's logs.

In a statement, the Inland Revenue explained that: 'Although it is unlikely that their information was seen by anyone else, we cannot completely eliminate the possibility.'

It added: 'We are writing to all those who may have been affected to apologise and explain what we are doing. We very much regret this incident.'

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