41/02
25 April 2002
Guidance Issued On Data Protection Act And The UK’s Anti-Money Laundering Legislation
The Treasury today issued guidance to the financial sector on the interaction between the Data Protection Act 1998 and the UK’s anti-money laundering legislation.
Concerns had been expressed by some institutions that the obligation not to ‘tip off’ individuals conflicts with the requirement in the Data Protection Act to disclose information held on an individual. The guidance offers advice to institutions on how to deal with a ‘Subject Access Request’ under the Data Protection Act.
Although the guidance does not constitute legal advice, the Information Commissioner has been consulted and ‘supports the approach taken’.
The guidance is available on this website(please see below for link)
NOTES TO EDITORS
1. The guidance has been prepared jointly by HM Treasury, the Home Office, the Lord Chancellor’s Department, the Financial Services Authority and the National Criminal Intelligence Service.
2. The obligation not to ‘tip off’ is contained in the primary law on money laundering.
The Anti-Money Laundering legislation document is available below in Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF). If you do not have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer you can download the software free of charge from the Adobe website.
For alternative ways to read PDF documents and further information on website accessibility visit the HM Treasury accessibility page.