EU-US data exchange rules ‘vague’

Date:24/07/03

By David Cronin

DETAILS of everyday financial transactions by Europe's citizens could be handed over to anti-terrorist investigators in the US because the scope of a new transatlantic cooperation agreement is so sweeping, a British parliamentary investigation has concluded.

The House of Lords select committee on European Union describes the terms on data exchange in the EU-US mutual legal assistance agreement, approved by the justice ministers last month, as "rather vague".

The committee feels that provisions in it, on the transfer of data held by non-bank financial institutions, mean that information on those who legitimately change money in bureaux de change could be given to the US authorities.

It welcomed an assurance in May by Bob Ainsworth, then Britain's under-secretary of state, that his government would require an assurance that someone was under investigation before consenting to handing over details of his or her financial transactions.

But the committee's report concluded: "The terms of the agreement remain broad and the provision could extend to a wide range of information about legitimate everyday transactions of, as the government admitted, innocent third parties."

Furthermore, the committee has criticized the agreement for not expressly providing for extradition of a suspect to the US to be refused if an extradition order is successfully challenged in the European Court of Human Rights.

The committee said it would be preferable if that possibility had been allowed for, as the European Convention on Human Rights, which the Strasbourg-based court interprets, is recognized as integral to EU law under the 1992 Maastricht Treaty.

The House of Lords Select Committee on the European Union has suggested that details of European citizens everyday financial transactions could be handed over to US terrorist investigators under the EU-US mutual legal assistance agreement approved by EU justice ministers in June 2003.

http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld199798/ldbrief/ldscrueu.pdf http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld199798/ldbrief/ldscrueu.pdf

---