Barbara Papke of Salmon Arm, B.C. wants to know why her ex-husband's girlfriend snooped on her income tax file.

"I have my suspicions but I would really like to know why," said Papke, who got married in 1985 and separated in 1999.

Revenue Canada's internal investigators from Ottawa are now trying to determine why "the girlfriend" who works in the verification enforcement division of the Edmonton Tax office accessed Papke's file.

"An investigation is underway and the file will be forwarded to the director," Ron Quinn, a spokesman with Revenue Canada in Alberta told The Asian Pacific Post.

Describing such situations as rare, Quinn said Revenue Canada employees found to have violated the department's rules about computer access could lose their jobs and possibly face criminal charges.

He said the 45,000 employees of Revenue Canada are told of the rules "from the word giddyup". "We take this issue very very seriously because the public has trusted us with their personal information."

Revenue Canada seems serious about taking unauthorized computer access seriously, although it says it does not keep numbers of the incidents.

Within hours of getting Papke's complaint via the office of Okanagan-Shuswap MP Darrell Stinson, Quinn mobilized a probe and contacted Papke to ensure her the matter was being dealt with.

A senior Revenue Canada investigator who was in Vancouver was then diverted up to the Okanagan to meet with Papke.

"I guess you could say they are moving speedily and rightly so...But you got to wonder how many of these cases go undetected," said the mother of two teens.

Papke stumbled upon her case by accident. "My ex wanted to change the child support payments and boasted that his girlfriend worked in the income tax office.

"I made some enquiries about my file and was told that I needed to file an Access to Information request." That request came through recently and the documents showed that Papke's file was accessed from Edmonton by the "girlfriend" on July 4, 2002.

"I don't know what she did with the information or if she printed out my records and what they have done with it," said Papke.

Revenue Canada has told Papke that if she wants to find out the outcome of the probe she would have to file another Access to Information request.

Stinson, who had his office staff assist Papke said: "if people are using income tax files to access information for personal vendettas then charges should be laid."