Friday

29th Mar 2024

EU law violated in US banking data transfer scandal

The money transfer company Swift has violated EU privacy rules when it secretly supplied the US authorities with millions of private bank transactions for use in anti-terror investigations, a Belgian commission has said.

"It has to be seen as a gross miscalculation by Swift that it has, for years, secretly and systematically transferred massive amounts of personal data for surveillance without effective and clear legal basis and independent controls in line with Belgian and European law," the Belgian privacy protection commission concluded, according to the Associated Press.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Get the EU news that really matters

Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

After the release of the report on Thursday (28 September), Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, said that the company - based in Belgium - had broken his country's privacy rules for more than five years.

But he acknowledged that Swift had found itself in a legal no-man's land, caught between European and US law, and recognised that sharing data on financial transfers was essential in the global fight against terrorism.

"Swift finds itself in a conflicting position between American and European law," Mr Verhofstadt said according to press reports.

Under EU law, it is illegal for companies to transfer confidential personal data to another country unless that country offers adequate protections.

Legal limbo

Swift has long defended its actions saying that having offices in the US made the transfers meet its legal obligations in the US.

The argument was rejected by the report on the grounds that Swift was still subject to Belgian rules, regardless of whether the data transferred to the US authorities came only from the company's US subsidiary instead of its headquarters in Brussels.

Swift, which stands for the "Society for Worldwide Inter-bank Financial Telecommunications" based just outside Brussels, routes about 11 million money transactions per day in more than 200 countries.

The standardised Swift transfer format contains the names of the transferral and the receiver, the account number and bank address, as well as the amount and the intended purpose.

Swift's chief executive officer, Leonard Schrank, defended the secret deal with the US, saying it only transmitted a "limited subset" of data. "Swift did its utmost to comply with the European data privacy principles of proportionality, purpose and oversight," he told the Independent.

Mr Verhofstadt said his government would not take legal action to shut down the data transfers, but called on the EU and US authorities to start talks on a new agreement on the transfer of financial records.

Mr Schrank stated that the Swift company "wholeheartedly" supported calls for US and EU authorities to work together on an improved framework to bring together the two regions' data privacy protections.

No cover up on SWIFT bank scandal, Brussels promises

The European Commission has promised there will be no cover up on questions about US access to EU bank data via the Belgian SWIFT system, but warned its investigation could hinge on niceties of EU law.

European companies fear US espionage

European companies are increasingly concerned that the US, which is allegedly spying EU cross-border bank transfers as part of its fight against terror, is also doing this in order to obtain economic data.

Belgium to probe US monitoring of international money transfers

Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt has ordered a probe into whether a Brussels-based banking consortium broke the law when it provided US anti-terror authorities with confidential information about international money transfers.

European bank urges US to clarify snooping activity

The European Central Bank has called on the EU and the US to urgently clarify the line between data protection and fighting terrorism, saying there is currently no alternative to the SWIFT money transfer system where the US has received personal information on EU citizens since 2001.

SWIFT broke EU data laws, panel says

Belgian money transfer company SWIFT violated EU data protection laws when it gave US intelligence information on millions of private European financial transactions, an independent EU panel has said, calling on the firm to immediately halt the data transfer.

Opinion

EU Modernisation Fund: an open door for fossil gas in Romania

Among the largest sources of financing for energy transition of central and eastern European countries, the €60bn Modernisation Fund remains far from the public eye. And perhaps that's one reason it is often used for financing fossil gas projects.

Latest News

  1. Kenyan traders react angrily to proposed EU clothes ban
  2. Lawyer suing Frontex takes aim at 'antagonistic' judges
  3. Orban's Fidesz faces low-polling jitters ahead of EU election
  4. German bank freezes account of Jewish peace group
  5. EU Modernisation Fund: an open door for fossil gas in Romania
  6. 'Swiftly dial back' interest rates, ECB told
  7. Moscow's terror attack, security and Gaza
  8. Why UK-EU defence and security deal may be difficult

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersJoin the Nordic Food Systems Takeover at COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersHow women and men are affected differently by climate policy
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  5. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  6. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?

Join EUobserver

EU news that matters

Join us