Seemingly unaware of the perils of identity theft, the Italian government put the names, addresses, income and tax status of every single Italian citizen on a public website.

The Italian tax office claimed the move was not only in the public interest “to allow the free circulation of information in a framework of transparency,” but also “in line with privacy guidelines”. The data was taken down 24 hours after going live following a complaint from Italy's privacy watchdog.

In the UK, more than 600 civil servants at Britain’s HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) have been disciplined or sacked for accessing personal or sensitive tax data. In other countries, however, citizens' tax details are considered public knowledge.

In Norway, for example, tax returns have been publicly available since 1863, but only accessible online since 2002. Details include name, age, income and address, and can be matched with searchable online directories such as the phone book to obtain home, work and mobile numbers along with professional details for a full portrait of an individual.

Further reading

The return of the ID card debate The UK government’s embarrassing loss of 25 million citizens’ personal details has reignited the ID card debate

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