Tax cooperation West Brabant had another data breach

The West Brabant Tax Cooperation made it childishly easy to view data from taxpayers, a resident of Zevenbergen discovered. The Brabant service has closed the data breach. Four years ago, the service also had a data breach.

The West Brabant Tax Cooperation sent links to pages that ended with a number when applying for WOZ assessments. By changing this number, pages of other taxpayers could be seen, including names, addresses and WOZ decisions, writes BN deStem. The simple work-around also provided access to court judgments in debt relief cases. It is not clear how many taxpayers the data could be viewed. In total, the Brabant service collects taxes on behalf of eleven municipalities and two water boards for approximately half a million households.

The error was discovered by a man from Zevenbergen. He warned the customer service of the Tax Cooperation West Brabant three times about the data breach, but the service only took action after BN deStem contacted them about the case. Director Peter Stoffelen speaks of a wake-up call to take a closer look at security in the future. “This leak was caused by a contact form that we added to our website not too long ago. About 400 documents were uploaded with that form.”

In 2017, the West Brabant service also had a data breach. Due to an error, 750 to 800 people were then shown the tax bill of a single person from Dongen when logging in with their own data.

Update 09.00: Initially this article stated that the data breach concerned the Tax and Customs Administration West Brabant, but the name of the service is Tax Cooperation West Brabant. Thanks to DRAMetElfend.