Brussels Eyes a Halt to SWIFT Data Agreement

Transparency was supposed to be a major element in the controversial US-European data agreement SWIFT adopted in 2010. But an effort by one European parliamentarian to determine if US officials had accessed his personal account information failed. Now, Brussels is considering a suspension of the deal.

US requests for EU citizens' banking data under an EU-US counter-terrorism data-sharing deal are too general and abstract to allow Europol to check whether they meet EU data protection standards, and Europol seems to be merely rubber-stamping them, said worried Civil Liberties Committee MEPs on the 16 March 2011, debating a watchdog report on the deal's first six months. This should be borne in mind when the European Parliament is asked to approve other data transfer agreements, they added.

• Primary Source

Europol: Press Release, 17.3.11: EU review endorses Europols implementation of TFTP agreement http://www.europol.europa.eu/index.asp?page=news&news=pr110317.htm

EUObserver, 16.3.11: MEPs decry 'breach of trust' in EU-US data deal http://euobserver.com/9/32000

Europol: US and EU agreement on exchanging personal data for the purposes of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (the TFTP Agreement1) – first inspection performed by the Europol Joint Supervisory Body (JSB) raises serious concerns about compliance with data protection principles, March 2011 http://europoljsb.consilium.europa.eu/media/112160/jsb%20tftp%20inspection%20-%20website%20notice,%20march%202011.pdf

ESO: Background information: Reding slams US over data privacy http://www.europeansources.info/record/reding-slams-us-over-data-privacy/

ESO: Background information: EU to unveil bank data deal with US http://www.europeansources.info/record/eu-to-unveil-bank-data-deal-with-us/

European Parliament: Press Release, 16.3.11: SWIFT implementation report: MEPs raise serious data protection concerns http://www.europarl.europa.eu/en/pressroom/content/20110314IPR15463/html/SWIFT-implementation-report-MEPs-raise-serious-data-protection-concerns

EUObserver, 4.4.11: Member states to clash with EU parliament on passenger data http://euobserver.com/9/32109

EUObserver, 17.3.11: Court only option against Swift agreement, says MEP http://euobserver.com/9/32010

European Commission: RAPID: Press Release: IP/11/324: Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme: Commission publishes report on joint EU-US review http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/11/324&format=PDF&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

European Commission: Memo/11/203: EU-US Negotiations on an agreement to protect personal information exchanged in the context of fighting crime and terrorism http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/11/203&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

Deutsche Welle, 13.4.11: Finance, security and privacy collide in SWIFT controversy http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,14987543,00.html

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