The EU Commission and the US government are currently finalising the new SWIFT agreement on bank data transfers from Europe to U.S. authorities. The previous agreement had been stopped by the European Parliament in February in a historic and bold move, because it was in severe breach of fundamental rights such as privacy, due process and effective legal redress.

Now, despite several clear warnings from the European Parliament, the new agreement brings no real progress on any of the substantive issues. It still allows transfers of bulk data on millions of completely unsuspicious persons, it allows disproportionate long data retention of five years, and it does not improve the legal protections for Europeans in the United States. This agreement will be voted in July in the European Parliament.

Henrik Piski, AD spokesperson for IT and Telecommunication said, “Hard won rights and freedoms must not be sacrificed in the name of the ‘fight against terrorism’ or alleged threats to security. Digital rights should be on a par with civil rights. Governments and commercial interests should not have primacy on our privacy.”

Michael Briguglio, AD Chairperson, added, ‘The European Greens are giving a lot of importance to this issue in order to defend the rights of internet users. In democratic societies it does not make sense to treat all internet users as potential terrorists.”

Permalink: EU-US agreement regulating the access of EU financial data