The government has confirmed it is changing procedures after accidentally revealing the email addresses of thousands of tax payers.

An operational error on May 20 this year resulted in taxpayers being able to see each other's email addresses. The tax office had been emailing customers to highlight its new Twitter account.

Treasury Minister Eddie Teare said this was a genuine mistake by a member of staff of the income tax division. He says the individual who made the mistake was not the staff member named in the email.

An investigation has been carried out and an assessment received from the data protection supervisor, outlining his concerns and the actions required.

Mr Teare said the division fully acknowledged it had failed to comply with data protection law and is now working with government technology services to address the issue.

He said: 'I would like to take this opportunity to apologise once again and assure the public that the division regards their information as highly confidential. The incident was not related in any way to the Government’s online services and no other tax information other than e-mail addresses was released.'

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