(June 8) – The Senate Banking Committee is currently holding hearings on the proposed legislation to introduce a money laundering reporting system. Although law enforcement authorities avidly want the new system, it has just received a lambasting by the Privacy Commissioner.
Bruce Phillips, privacy commissioner from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, appeared before the committee yesterday and attacked the proposed new regime as vague and potentially oppressive to the average citizen. The new system would require anyone handling money, from bankers and brokers to insurance agents and casino operators, to report transactions over $10,000, or any “suspicious activity” to a new body that would collect the data, analyze and attempt to identify money laundering.
Phillips says the system is too powerful, “It has the potential and the likelihood of placing a very substantial proportion of the population under what amounts to a more or less constant form of surveillance.” Phillips warns that the public will have no real access to the information collected about them, without their knowledge. He says that the new reporting centre is designed to be unnaccountable, as he has been informed that it intends to routinely deny information requests under the Privacy Act. “Essentially, therefore, it debases the rights that are contained in the existing Privacy Act.”
The data reporting centre will also be able to share the information it collects, not only with police forces, but also Revenue Canada and other government agencies. Phillips affirmed the senators concern that data reported to the centre could be used to attack the underground economy and unreported income.
Phillips suggested that the entire project is overkill. “I think the argument that must be posed and that the Senate must consider is whether the cure here is not a little worse than the disease.”
-James Langton