From: AlanBaggett@volcanomail.com   
      
   Revenue agency aims to improve tracking of employee misconduct : CRA SOTW   
      
   Jordan Press    
   Published: September 18, 2013, 3:36 pm   
      
   OTTAWA – The Canada Revenue Agency is in the midst of setting up a tracking   
   system to prevent its employees from improperly – and potentially illegally –   
   snooping through taxpayers’ files.   
      
   The project has been two years in the making – it’s really two separate   
   projects – and the agency says it won’t be fully implemented until 2016, by   
   which time the CRA will be able to better detect fraud or misuse of taxpayers’   
   files by its own employees.   
      
   The new system will be “many years ahead of what had been originally planned,”   
   according to a briefing note to the commissioner of the revenue agency earlier   
   this year. Once completed, the briefing note says, the CRA will have improved   
   the technology it    
   uses, to “align with industry standards and address recommendations of various   
   audits.”   
      
   That note, dated March 20 and titled “Integrity of the tax system: protect   
   taxpayer information,” suggests creating an “enterprise fraud and misuse”   
   program that includes automated processes to track the work habits of its   
   employees and provide the    
   results to managers. Senior officials in the agency approved the purchase of   
   the necessary technology in June, a spokeswoman said, without providing   
   spending details.   
   The agency plans to log whenever employees go into taxpayers’ files through   
   any access point in the agency’s network, and create a central database to   
   track who has been allowed access to the agency’s sensitive systems, and who   
   has lost that privilege,    
   so that someone doesn’t wrongly gain access to CRA files.   
      
   A spokeswoman for the agency said this week that so far, the CRA has completed   
   two of four phases for the identity management project, creating a central   
   service to “validate, link and monitor the creation of employee accounts.” By   
   next year, the agency    
   expects to have a better password management system in place to ensure the   
   person logging in is the actual employee and not an impostor. And in 2016, the   
   agency plans better oversight of who has access to its system, and how much   
   access they can receive.   
      
   “Maintaining taxpayer trust is essential to protecting the integrity and the   
   functionality of Canada’s tax system. This is why CRA is always working to   
   promote a culture of integrity, security, and accountability within its   
   organization,” CRA spokeswoman    
   Mylene Croteau said in an email.   
      
   “These two initiatives .. .were launched as a result of the CRA’s continuous   
   review of its process and technology to ensure that the risk to the protection   
   of taxpayer information is appropriately mitigated.”   
   Complaints that CRA workers have improperly accessed confidential taxpayers’   
   information in recent years led the federal privacy commissioner to launch a   
   special audit of the agency with the results due in the fall.   
      
   Late last year, the agency punished two employees who illegally accessed the   
   tax records of their friends and family, with one getting away with the   
   unauthorized access for more than three years before being caught.   
      
   In one case, an employee took cash and gifts over a six-year period to use his   
   know-how about tax rules to get his friends and family the largest refunds   
   possible. An internal affairs investigation report showed the the employee who   
   worked on the agency’   
   s toll-free taxpayer help line accessed the private files of 21 taxpayers   
   1,929 times between 2006 and 2011.   
      
   In the other case, an employee tried unsuccessfully to prevent the agency from   
   collecting GST from a business that was also “delinquent” in its filings. The   
   manager at a CRA call centre also improperly accessed files on taxpayers out   
   of “curiosity” to    
   see what he could earn in other fields of work, or whether someone “he had   
   vaguely known” owed any taxes “and to see what he was doing.”   
      
      
      
      
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