April 01, 2020 / By mobanmarket
Commission pledges highest level of data protectionMEPs seek to limit bank data shared with US
Members of the European Parliament’s civil liberties, justice and home affairs committee are insisting that the European Commission limits data transferred to the US authorities under a new deal to share bank transfer data.
MEPs detailed a long list of demands to Jonathan Faull, director-general for justice and home affairs, at a meeting today (7 April) on the Commission’s proposed negotiating mandate for a new agreement. The proposal, presented on 23 March, still needs the backing of member states before EU-US talks can begin.
Faull’s department, which reports to two commissioners, will lead the EU negotiations on a new deal.
MEPs urged Faull to ensure much less data is transferred to US authorities under the so-called US Terrorist Financing Tracking Programme (TFTP), arguing that too much data had been sent in the past in violation of EU data privacy rights.
The Parliament blocked an interim EU-US data transfer deal in February because of concerns that it did not do enough to respect European data protection rules.
Many MEPs called for EU member states to set up their own system whereby they could inspect and filter the data themselves to ensure the process complied with EU rules, before transferring needed data on suspect terrorists to the US.
“Filtering should be done in the EU. It’s the principle that should be applied to any transfer,” said Sophia in’t Veldt, a Dutch liberal MEP. “The Americans are looking for a needle and we basically send them a haystack. That is not necessary, it is disproportional.”
Simon Busuttil, a Maltese centre-right MEP, said the Parliament, which has the power to reject any final deal, “would be much more comfortable” if EU agencies such as Europol were involved in filtering data rather than US authorities.
MEPs also called for stronger safeguards and guarantees to be added to the accord to ensure EU citizens had the same right of redress over use of their data as US citizens do in their courts.
The Commission’s mandate calls for the EU to set up an approval system by a judicial public body. The specifics of how such a system would operate still have to be worked out between member states.
The mandate also foresees mechanisms for administrative and judicial redress for EU citizens whose data have been shared with US authorities. Cecilia Malmström, the EU’s home affairs commissioner, and Viviane Reding, commissioner for justice and fundamental rights, said they would push EU member states to set up their own terror financing tracking programme.
Faull told the committee he expected “difficult” negotiations, but said the Commission, which under the Lisbon treaty will lead the talks on behalf of the EU, will strive to secure the highest data privacy guarantees.
“We go into this determined to negotiate an agreement which provides greater protection for the personal data for Europeans,” said Faull.
He said he hoped EU justice and home affairs ministers meeting on 22-23 April would approve the negotiating mandate so that talks with the US can start in early May. “We will try to negotiate an agreement by the end of June,” Faull added.
The US Treasury set up their anti-terror finance tracking programme after the September 2001 attacks in New York, forcing SWIFT, a Belgian-based bank data transfer consortium, to hand records of international transfers for inspection by US anti-terror investigators. Officials from the EU and the US claim the data sharing has led to several arrests.
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