ORG hands in petition saying no to HMRC’s tax data sell off

We handed in our tax data sell-off petition to HMRC earlier today, along with ORG Advisory Council member Julian Huppert MP and campaign groups 38 Degrees and SumofUs. The Guardian’s just put a story up covering the petition hand-in.

Over 300,000 people signed petitions, which were started by ORG, 38 Degrees and SumofUs after we found out that HMRC was considering sharing anonymised tax data for commercial research. We’re concerned that under these plans it is very difficult to give or withdraw consent about what happens to our tax data. It is also not at all clear that selling tax data to companies is truly in the public interest.

ORG is currently engaged with HMRC and the Cabinet Office in discussions around the sharing of personal data held by the Government. We’ll keep you updated with how that’s going.

Thanks to everyone who signed the petition.