Proposal to transfer EU data to US requires "justification"

says EU data protection supervisor who describes plans as intrusive

complaints over the proposal to transfer massive amounts of personal EU data to the US

European data protection supervisor Peter Hustinx has demanded a formal justification for plans to allow bulk transfers of "massive" amounts of EU bank data to be transferred to the US authorities.

The data contains personal details of people banking in the EU and it will be fed into the American Terrorist Financial Tracking System.

In a draft agreement prepared by the European Commission he said: "The necessity of the proposed agreement should be unambiguously established, [and this should be done] by comparing it with other less privacy-invasive existing instruments."

The European Parliament has already vetoed an interim agreement.

The latest Brussels' draft would allow the US to access European-based financial data managed by the Belgian company SWIFT in cases of suspected terrorism.

Charged with protecting data privacy in the EU, Hustinx accepted that the fight against international terrorism and terrorism financing may require restrictions to the protection of personal data, but described the draft agreement as being of an "intrusive nature".

He said that, if the necessity of the proposed agreement was unambiguously established, European negotiators should still insist the financial data is sifted "in the European Union" to ensure only relevant and necessary data is sent.

He also argued for a reduction in the storage period for non-extracted data, requiring "a public judicial body" to assess requests from the US Treasury. " This would ensure existing data protection rights of EU citizens are effectively enforceable in the US and enhance independent oversight," he said.