Vanessa Houlder reports:
Britain has approached Germany to buy data stolen from a Swiss bank in an effort to discover details of accounts hidden in the country by potential UK tax evaders.
[…]
A number of German politicians, as well as the Swiss government, have criticised Berlin’s decision to purchase the stolen data.
Although the same criticism is likely to be levelled at the Revenue, the UK tax authorities are allowed to pay a reward for information in return for extra taxes collected.
The Dutch, Belgian and Austrian governments have also signalled they wish to buy data from the same disc relating to their citizens.
Read more in The Financial Times.
If governments pay data thieves for the proceeds of crime, doesn’t that only encourage more potential data thieves?