I think that using secure email to ensure the safety and privacy of certain information is very important, especially in this day and age of rampant identity theft. As thieves are finding new ways to steal citizen's identities, we in turn need to find new ways to protect ourselves from this. Secure email is a great way. That being said, I think that the government, specifically the IRS, especially needs to make sure that all information sent back and forth to them is encrypted and secure. I found an IRS website, which talks about how data passed to private collection agencies must be encrypted. The article states "The new F&PC System will serve as an inventory management system to assign, exchange, monitor, control and update delinquent taxpayer accounts between the IRS Authoritative Data Source (ADS) and the Private Collection Agencies with whom IRS will contract." In reference to secure email, it says "The new system will assign and deliver delinquent taxpayer account data to PCAs (using secure email for Release 1.1 and Registered User Portal (RUP) for subsequent releases) and provide tax account updates on a daily and weekly basis." The article also gives a list of the necessary data elements that will be sent to PCAs via secure encrypted email.
As I said before, I think that the IRS is one "business" that certainly needs to make sure that all information sent is secure. If there is a break in this system, or if information is sent that is not secure, then the IRS runs the risk of exploiting citizen's personal information for anyone who knows what they're doing to intercept and view.
Website Cited: http://www.irs.gov/privacy/article/0,,id=140507,00.html
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