A hard drive was stolen from a computer used to scan incoming mail items from Municipal Tax Service buildings in Amsterdam. Alderman Victor Everhardt (Finance) wrote this in a letter to City Council (pdf). The hard drive contains document scans sent by nearly 30,000 taxpayers from July 2020 to March 2021.
Documents include objections, returns, and requests for forgiveness. For example, contact details and copies of identity certificates and health insurance policy papers may be included.
It is not clear how much and exactly what information was stolen from the building located on the Herikerbergweg in Amsterdam-Zuidoost. This varies from case to case.
The hard drive is equipped with authentication protection. Data cannot be read without circumventing this security. The CEO of the municipality deals with theft as a data breach, due to the risk of circumventing security and reselling the data or using it for fraud and (identity) fraud.
The municipality filed a police report on Wednesday, April 7, when it was noticed that the disc had been stolen. A report has also been submitted to the Netherlands Data Protection Authority. Police investigations into the theft are still ongoing.
No data or documents were lost due to hard drive theft. So the previously sent mail items do not have to be sent again.
Those affected will receive a letter with advice
“The Commission deeply regrets the incident and is making every effort to inform those involved as much as possible,” wrote Everhardt. Taxpayers whose information is stored on the stolen disk will be notified with a message starting Monday. Mentions the accident and the potential hazards they are exposed to.
Participants can contact Belastingen Amsterdam to obtain documents related to their case. This way, according to the commission, they can get a better picture of the risk of fraud or fraud that may arise in their case. Concerns are also required to be alerted to bills, phone calls, texts, and emails from known and unknown senders. The municipality advises you to contact us in case of doubt to verify whether the correspondence is indeed issued by the municipality.
