Fergie's Tech Blog

EU, U.S. Reach Preliminary Deal on SWIFT Data

Ingrid Melander writes for Reuters:

The EU and the United States have reached a preliminary deal on how U.S. authorities can consult data from the international banking network SWIFT in anti-terror investigations, an EU spokesman said on Wednesday.

"We have a draft agreement," Friso Roscam Abbing, spokesman for EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said of an accord aimed at allaying European data privacy concerns.

Roscam Abbing did not give details but said the deal included provisions on data protection. "Then it is for SWIFT and for the banks to do their share in informing in advance their customers about providing the data," he said.

U.S. officials could not confirm if a preliminary deal had been reached. One said: "The process for reaching a final deal is still ongoing."

posted by Fergie @ 6/20/2007 03:55:00 PM