The Guardian berichtet über SWIFT: CIA’s secret UK bank trawl may be illegal
A spokesman for the information commissioner told the Guardian that the privacy issue was being taken „extremely seriously“. If the CIA had accessed financial data belonging to European individuals then this was „likely to be a breach of EU data protection legislation“, he said, adding that UK data protection laws may also have been breached if British banking transactions had been handed over. The commissioner is requesting more information from Swift and the Belgium authorities before deciding how to proceed.
The Bank of England, one of the 10 central banks with a place on Swift’s managing committee, revealed it had told the British government about the programme in 2002. „When we found out we informed the Treasury and passed the relationship over to them,“ Peter Rogers of the Bank said. „We also told Swift that they had to speak to the government themselves. It had nothing to do with us. It was a matter of security and not of finance. It was an issue between Swift and the government.“
[via]