By Bruno Waterfield - 28th September 2006
Secret grabs of European banking data by US security agencies were illegal under EU legislation, a Belgian investigation has found.
The report will pile pressure on the European commission to act on handovers of millions of Swift financial transactions to US security agencies.
Belgian leader Guy Verhofstadt has insisted that he can not take sanctions against the Belgium-based Swift banking consortium landing the political hot potato in the commission’s lap.
“Swift finds itself in a conflicting position between American and European law,” he said.
"But it should have received stronger guarantees of privacy protection based on European standards - not by American standards, which are not as strong."
“Now it is up to the EU to rescue the company from a legal dilemma and to negotiate a common legal basis with the US.”
The Belgian probe accuses Swift – the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications – of a “serious error of judgement”.
“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,” said the report.
Brussels data protection enforcers were awaiting the report before deciding whether the anti-terror surveillance of millions of transactions was unlawful under EU legislation.
The handovers of financial data relating to European banking transactions only emerged following media reports .
Press coverage – despite Washington attempts to gag newspapers – revealed activities that the ECB, European central banks and the Belgian government were aware of.
The commission and EU presidency have tried to wash their hands of any responsibility for the information exchanges which might not be covered by data protection law.
European justice commissioner Franco Frattini has argued that the data grabs are not covered by EU law until national governments sign up to proposals on data protection and law enforcement.
Have your say...
Please enter your comments below.