The Justice and Home Affairs Council agreed on a mandate to open new negotiations on an EU-US agreement on bank data transfers under the US Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme (TFTP).

While helping the US Treasury Department to identify, track and pursue suspected terrorists and their providers of finance, the final agreement must also grant the highest level of protection for EU citizens' personal data.

Under the proposal, the Brussels-based SWIFT Company would have to transmit to the US administration financial transaction record data relevant to terrorism investigations. Such data may contain identifying information about the originator or recipient of the transaction, including name, address, national identification number and other personal data related to financial messages.

To protect EU citizens' fundamental rights, the data transferred would, however, be subject not to open-ended searching, but instead to targeted searches based on pre-existing information demonstrating a reason to believe that the subject of the search is connected to terrorism or its financing. Data not subject to a specific search would be kept anonymous.

The negotiating mandate provides for strong data protection safeguards, such as the right to administrative and judicial review; the right of access, rectification and erasure of data; and the requirement that data transfers must be approved by a public authority in the EU.

The Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme was set up shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 2001. Relevant results of US analyses have been shared with EU member states and have contributed to effective investigation and prevention of terror attacks.

The Commission adopted the draft terms of the mandate which has now been approved by the Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs in late March, after the European Parliament had rejected in February the bank data exchange with the United States via the SWIFT network, because of concerns of MEPs over issues such as privacy, proportionality and reciprocity.