The Members of the European Parliament (MEP) have voted for suspension of EU’s Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) pact with the US, in the wake of the US National Security Agency’s (NSA) suspected snooping of SWIFT bank transfer data to gain international financial records.
The SWIFT mechanism is used by the TFFP to track the movements of alleged homeland security threats.
MEPs, however, noted that none of the EU member states has probed the claim and pushed for EU nations to sanction an investigation by Europol’s Cybercrime Centre.
The ruling also demands a ‘full on-site technical investigation’ of claims of the US authorities establishing an illegal access to, or having developed potential ‘back doors’ into, the SWIFT servers.
The resolution also noted that although Parliament has no official powers to set off the suspension or termination of an international deal, the Commission will have to act if Parliament pulls out its support for a particular agreement.
Parliament will encompass the Commission’s response to this demand when approving future international pacts.
MEPs also pressed that any data-sharing deal with the US has to be derived from a reliable legal data protection framework, which offers legally-binding standards on purpose limitation, data minimisation, information, access, correction, erasure and redress.
