[Guernsey regulatory matters, Crime (AML/CFT) regulatory updates]
House of Lords Committee reports on money laundering and data protection for suspicious activity reports – On 20 January 2011, the Home Affairs sub-committee of the House of Lords European Union Committee published a report, Money laundering: data protection for suspicious activity reports, its sixth report of session 2010–11.
The report follows the Committee’s July 2009 report on money laundering and the financing of terrorism, to which the government responded in October 2009
One of the recommendations in the July 2009 report was that consideration be given to amending the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA) to include a de minimis exclusion so that transactions for minor criminal offences would not need to be reported. The July 2009 report also suggested that the Information Commissioner should investigate the operation of the suspicious activities reports (SARs) database (known as ELMER).
In November 2010, the Information Commissioner provided a report to the Committee on the Serious Organised Crime Agency’s (SOCA) operation and use of the ELMER database. The Commissioner’s report includes recommendations for improvements to ELMER’s operation and comments on its compliance with the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA). The Commissioner’s report is included at appendix 2 of the Committee’s report and was forwarded by the Committee to HM Treasury in December 2010.
In its report, the Committee finds that the Information Commissioner’s report:
- Supports the Committee’s view that the ELMER database is not fully compliant with the DPA.
- Raises concerns that access to ELMER is not as wide as the Committee was led to understand when it compiled its July 2009 report.
- Supports the Committee’s July 2009 recommendation that POCA should be amended to include a de minimis exclusion.
The Committee calls on the government and the SOCA to take appropriate action to address these findings.
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