THE US authorities have revealed that they examined some 27,000 financial payments in six months under a programme to track transactions suspected of links to terrorist networks.
The information, which provides a glimpse at the scale of financial tracking programmes introduced after the 9/11 terror attacks, was released to the EU Commission under a deal to give American investigators access to European financial data.
On privacy grounds, MEPs blocked an agreement last year to give US investigators routine access to European financial transactions.
A new deal was subsequently struck in which the Commission is obliged to make public reports on its execution.
Senior US government figures – including vice-president Joe Biden – sought MEPs’ support for the initiative, saying that the Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme (TFTP) was crucial for the prevention of terror attacks.
Reviewing the new deal after its first six months, however, an EU team said it would welcome more verifiable statistical information on the added value of the TFTP “to efforts to combat terrorism and its financing”.
The Commission published the answers provided by the US treasury department to a questionnaire as part of its report on the first six months of the arrangement, between August and January.
While the Commission said that the US had adhered to the deal, it also said that more information should be provided to the public on how it operates. “This concerns in particular the overall volume of data provided to the US authorities and the number of financial payment messages accessed,” it said.
The 27,006 searches of “financial payment messages” involved data related to transactions within the US, EU member states and third countries.
“This number includes searches of financial payment messages from financial institutions around the world, most of which involve neither the EU nor its residents,” the US treasury said in its questionnaire response.
“The overwhelming majority of messages that are accessed will never be disseminated or even printed; most will be viewed for a few seconds to determine value and thereafter closed, with no further action or dissemination.”
The questionnaire reveals that information derived from searches led to reports being supplied on 84 occasions to the European authorities and EU member states in the six-month period. “More than 1,700 such reports have been provided to the EU in the nearly 10 years since the programme began,” the treasury said.
The Commission said time was too short to come to a considered judgement on the effectiveness of the programme.
“The EU review team recommends that more statistical information on the overall volumes of data provided under the agreement and the data accessed is provided in the course of future reviews – such information should preferably become public information, where this is possible without endangering the effectiveness of the TFTP,” the Commission’s report said.