Thursday, February 24, 2011

EU Refuses to Reveal Bank Data Transfers to U.S.

Jennifer Baker writes on NetworkWorld:

The European Commission and Europol have once again refused to reveal any information about how the Terrorist Finance Tracking Agreement between the European Union and the U.S. is working six months after it came into force.


The so-called 'Swift' accord, which allows the bulk transfer of European citizens' financial data to the U.S. authorities, came into force on Aug. 1 last year. In December, German representatives revealed that questions from the German data protection commissioner about how many requests the U.S. has made for data and how many, if any, have been approved, were not answered.


Europol said that questions could only be answered by the Commission. But the Commission said that 'neither the Commission nor Europol nor the member states have the power to bindingly interpret the agreement." Europol further indicated that such sensitive information is in any case top secret. The German delegation to the Council of Europe said that repeatedly sidestepping the questions is not helpful and will lead to growing public mistrust.


More here.

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