The Internal Revenue Service is collecting more than your taxes these days. They
are collecting a massive amount of personal information on your digital activities: credit
card payments, e-pay transactions, eBay auctions, and Facebook posts.

In previous commentaries, I have talked about the impact of “big data.”
Apparently the IRS understands its significance as well. The agency will start using
“robo-audits” and third party data to collect more information on taxpayers then they ever
had access to in the past.

Why is the Internal Revenue Service using “big data” to invade your privacy?
Government leaders are putting pressure on the IRS because the federal government
needs more money, and it is estimates that as much as $300 billion in revenue is lost to
evasion and errors each year. Collecting and analyzing this data might be one way to
close the so-called “tax gap.”

This new IRS program is not without its critics. I have seen a number of articles
and columns about the potential invasion of our privacy. Watchdog groups are concerned
about how this new program using “big data” is being implemented with few guidelines
and essentially no public discussion. In fact, this commentary might be the first time you
have heard about what the IRS is doing in data collection.

Apparently the digital tracking of the IRS is quite sophisticated. They have
brought in private industry experts to develop the system. But since this is a government
agency, they have access to Social Security numbers, health records, and other privileged
information not available to private sector marketing firms. One IRS bureaucrat boasted:
“Private industry would be envious if they knew what our models are.”

Each day, we lose a little more of our privacy. The last thing we need is more
government regulation and overreach into our private lives. Big brother is using big data
to track you down in ways few of us could have ever imagined.