Topic 11

The European single market has ensured trade, competition, consumer choice, employment and prosperity for all Europeans. Dark side of this achievement is that open borders also allow the free movement of criminals, terrorists, proceeds of crime and terrorist funding. This threat poses great challenges for the EU Member States, as the state agencies involved in fighting these phenomena are predominantly domestically organised and focused. Hence, while criminals and terrorists exploit the open borders of the EU to hide their proceeds and other malicious goals, counteraction can be frustrated by the lack of intelligence caused by still existing information ‘borders’. How to break down the information barriers without breaking (national) data protection rules and regulations? How to detect hidden proceeds in the Member States without violating the privacy of innocent civilians? The Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) within the EU introduce technology that is able to do just that.

FIUs handle financial intelligence. Generally speaking, all parties involved in handling cash or value commodities are required to disclose unusual or suspicious transactions to the FIUs. The FIUs analyze the received disclosures. In case of suspicion of money laundering or terrorism financing, the FIUs forward the gathered intelligence to the national authorities in charge of criminal prosecution. In its process of gathering this intelligence, the FIUs can request information from international counterpart FIUs. To exchange their delicate intelligence, FIUs use secured e-mail systems. As the cooperation between EU FIUs is based on community legislation (1), the EU FIUs have designed a tool specially for the purpose of exchanging financial intelligence within the EU: FIU.NET.

FIU.NET is a decentralised computer network. Decentralised meaning, that there is no central database in one specific Member State where all the exchanged data is stored. When sending the information from one FIU to another, the exchanged data is only and safely stored on the FIU.NET databases at the premises of the FIUs involved in the exchange. This is an important requirement as it guarantees that it is only the FIU “owning” the information that is in charge of its own information. FIU.NET is designed using input of FIU analysts and combines state of the art technology to make the work of the FIU.NET user as simple as possible. When European FIU analysts are confronted with links of money launderers or terrorism financers to neighbouring countries or other Member States they will request the counterpart FIU in a secure, speedy, and simple way. FIU.NET automatically standardises EU data, which makes it possible to compare data, statistics, etc. Consequently this creates uniformity in the fight against ML/TF in the EU. However, still the question needs to be addressed on how FIU.NET breaks down the information barriers without breaking (national) data protection rules and regulations? And, how can FIU.NET help detect hidden proceeds in the Member States without violating the privacy of innocent civilians? This is realised through the Ma3tch feature.