The US will be able to continue using data from SWIFT,
according to the deal, but the European Commission said that the
usage of data will now conform to European data protection
principles.
"The EU will have now the necessary guarantees that US Treasury
processes data it receives from Swift's mirror server in USA in a
way which takes account of EU data protection principles," said
Franco Frattini, EU Commissioner responsible for justice, freedom
and security. "I welcome the United States' Treasury Department's
unilateral representations and the opportunity the Treasury has
given the European Union to have its views and concerns duly
reflected in the representations."
SWIFT ran into controversy last year when the New York Times
revealed that it had passed information on Europeans' transactions
to US authorities on an ongoing basis since the aftermath of
terrorist attacks in the US on 11th September 2001.
European, Swiss and Belgian data protection authorities all
ruled that SWIFT had broken data protection laws in supplying the
information without informing bank customers of the US
surveillance.
SWIFT defended itself by saying that some of its servers are in
the US and that it had to comply with US subpoenas for the
data.
The new deal allows US authorities to keep data that is not
relevant to anti-terrorism purposes for up to five years. It also
allows the US Treasury to pass the information to other US
authorities and even other countries, if the activity is
related to counter-terrorism.
"The Representations include the following important safeguards:
commitments by the US Treasury to use any data received from SWIFT
exclusively for counter terrorism purposes – an obligation which
applies also where such data are shared with other US agencies and
with third countries," said a European Commission statement. "Any
other use of SWIFT data is therefore excluded, including for
example use of those data for commercial or industrial
purposes."
Earlier this week European data protection officials gave
Europe's banks a deadline of 1st September, after which all
customers whose transactions could be tracked by US authorities had
to be informed of this.
Frattini said that it was now up to bankers to ensure that
privacy principles were followed. "We now look to SWIFT and to the
financial institutions which use its services to ensure that they
fully comply with their information obligations under European data
protection law," he said."We urge them to take all the necessary
steps to ensure their quick compliance with European data
protection law".
