Zone-H.org - The SWIFT enquiry

The SWIFT enquiry

Tuesday, 28 November 2006

An independent panel composed by 25 data protection officials confirmed that the Belgian money transfer company SWIFT violated the European law of 1995 about data storage and protection, providing US Government with data on international financial transactions by European citizens, the Spanish newspaper El Pais reported last week .

The commission met on November 21st in Brussels to analyze the set of documents collected by Belgian authorities. Their conclusions were disclosed the following day in a very detailed report stating "SWIFT committed violations of data protection laws by transferring data to the US."

"SWIFT and financial institutions must immediately take the necessary measures to end this illegality". According to the EU Observer , not only will the commission ask for the application of sanctions to SWIFT but also are they intentioned to take legal actions against the Belgian Government that failed in ensuring SWIFT to comply with EU laws.

But the Belgian Minister, Mr. Guy Verhofstadt, rejected the accusations against his country which he says has not to be blamed for the SWIFT case, and called on the EU to set up a formal data-sharing agreement with the US to provide legal clarity for firms such as SWIFT.

On its side, SWIFT submitted a comprehensive legal rebuttal to Belgian Privacy Commission.
In such occasion, SWIFT CEO Leonard H. Schrank stated, “SWIFT strongly supports calls by national and EU officials for urgent dialogue between Europe and the United States to develop mechanisms for dealing with financial intelligence for counter-terrorism purposes while ensuring adequate data protection safeguards.
It is vital that the international data privacy debate includes these broader concerns of security and public safety.”

The rebuttal claims that SWIFT acted according to current laws by complying with the mandatory subpoenas from the US Treasury (UST) for limited sets of data in the US for the exclusive purpose of terrorism investigations. It then highlights that SWIFT obtained from the US Treasury extraordinary measures for data protection, that according to the company’s spokesmen went far beyond SWIFT legal duties.

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