Missoula Treasurer’s Office Apologizes After Citizen Emails Accidentally Revealed

The Missoula County Treasurer’s office is apologizing after it accidentally released the email addresses and names of about 1,200 Missoula tax payers who signed up to get an email reminder. County Treasurer Tyler Gernant explains,

"In 2015 tax bills, we allowed people to provide us with an email address so we could send a reminder about second half taxes coming due, which are due May 31," Gernant said. "We created a contact list and, essentially, what happened is when we went to send that email out we put the contact list, which had people's email addresses and the names of people associated with those addresses in the 'To' line instead of the 'Copy' line.

Gernant says the county was concerned that the email addresses may get spam mail, but also said the emails were not tied to any private information.

"There is no tie to any other information system or other system in the county, so it is not actually linked to your tax records at all," Gernant said. "The fear that we had is that people will start getting spammed or something like that. Unfortunately, this is the kind of situation where, once the bell has been rung, it's kind of hard to un-ring the bell."

Anyone negatively impacted by the name and email release has been asked to contact the Missoula County Treasurer’s office.