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When Italians’ tax returns went online, briefly

Italians dying to know how much their neighbour, boss or favourite footballer gets paid saw their dreams come true on Wednesday when a government website briefly published the income of every Italian taxpayer.

The posting of 38 million tax returns from 2005 was no bureaucratic bungle or the result of a hacking attack but a deliberate last push for fiscal transparency by the outgoing government of Romano Prodi.

But a stampede by curious Italians to the site caused it to crash, before Italy’s privacy watchdog demanded it be shut down a few hours later after howls of protests from celebrities and politicians.

“It’s all about transparency and democracy; I don’t see the problem,” said Finance Minister Vincenzo Visco. But the data protection commissioner, Francesco Pizzetti, was not convinced. “It’s one thing to make data available in response to precise requests, another to publish it in this way,” he said, adding that the idea of the data appearing on Google for eternity “was extremely dangerous”.

Italian newspapers were quick to download the pay packets of reams of celebrities to fill entire pages on Thursday, from Giorgio Armani, on €45 m, and Umberto Eco, on €2.1m, to incoming prime minister Silvio Berlusconi on €28m.

Italian comic blogger Beppe Grillo criticised the initiative, claiming it would help the mafia find targets for extortion and robbery. “Better a conviction for tax evasion than getting knifed or robbed,” he wrote. Comments then posted on his blog questioned how Grillo came to be making €4.3m a year.

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