The release of thousands of email addresses by the income tax division of Treasury has been described as a 'genuine mistake' made by a member of staff.

The tax office sent out ten batches of emails, with up to 500 addresses in each batch that were all visible to the recipients. It was part of a programme to raise awareness of the division's new twitter account and meant one of the first tweets was an apology for disclosing the email addresses.

In a statement released this morning, the government says an internal investigation will be carried out and apologised for the error, while emphasising that no personal income tax information has been disclosed.

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