Bank customers told of US screening details

BANK customers are due to receive notices warning them that their personal data may be passed to United States authorities screening for terrorists.

The move follows concerns by the Data Protection Commissioner that Irish customers’ details were unknowingly being passed to the US through a money transfer system run byBelgian firm Swift.

Every day Swift carries out 64,000 financial transactions on behalf of mostleading Irish banks. These are open to screening by the CIA and other agencies, following a US court order.

A code of practice with customers has been agreed between Irish banks, which includes sending customers notices by post, informing them online or giving them verbal or written warnings prior to money transfers.

The Irish Banking Federation has agreed a template with many of its 77 members. Felix O’Regan, the IBF’s head of public affairs, said yesterday: “The notification depends on the size of the business relationship. If the customer objects, the customer is always free to go and find some other way of conducting business. The reality is 99.99% of people should not and need not have concerns over it.”

A template notice agreed with banks includes: “Irish banks have no alternative but to use SWIFT’s services to execute international payments as there is noother organisation at present providing such services worldwide. If Irish banks did not avail of SWIFT’s services, they would not be able to offer customersglobal payment services.

“Thus any customer instructing his/her bank to execute a payment order is giving implicitly his/her consent that those dataelements necessary for the correct processing of the transaction may be sent outside of Ireland.”

This week, Bank of Scotland was one of the firstfinancial institutions to post a notice to online customers about the development.

The notice says: “The SWIFT network used by Irish banks meets the highest security standards from a technical and organisational standpoint.

“The Irish banking industry is currently seeking to find an international solution to the data protection law issues involved.”

Assistant Data Protection Commissioner Diarmuid Hallinan yesterday confirmed the banks’ notices to clients would be monitored.

www.dataprotection.ie