The Ministry of Justice will be writing to people who have received a letter incorrectly suggesting they may be a person who owes fines or reparation.
Every year, the Ministry matches data with Inland Revenue and in the last financial year, more than 2 million people were successfully matched this way.
This data matching helps ensure victims of crime receive reparation owed to them and fines are paid.
However, the Ministry has found there was an error in some data Inland Revenue recently provided which meant the Ministry sent out some letters to the wrong recipients.
Of the 16,000 letters sent out since 23 April 2018, 3,448 had incorrectly matched information and were sent to the wrong person.
Acting Chief Operating Officer Tania Ott apologised for any concern these letters might have caused.
“We’re very disappointed this error occurred but are confident that it has now been corrected.
“While we will be writing to affected people directly, I want to publicly apologise for any concern or inconvenience these letters may have caused. Anyone who has received one in late April that was not intended for them, should disregard it. The error and the data has now been fixed.”