New details from Edward Snowden were released through the German magazine Spiegal showing that the secret NSA program "Follow the Money" records bank and credit card transactions.
NSA analysts said in an internal conference in 2010 that they had successfully searched Visa's credit-card transaction network to focus on customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Spiegel reported. Their goal was "to collect, parse and ingest transactional data for priority credit-card associations, focusing on priority geographic regions," the magazine said, quoting what it said was an NSA document from 2010.The NSA database Tracfin works with outside organizations such as Swift in Brussels to share bank data. Spiegal states that the NSA can access collected traffic from many banks worldwide.
Records of credit-card transactions flowed into an NSA database, called Tracfin, that also contains data on interbank transfers handled by Swift, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication in Brussels, Spiegel said. Spiegal said NSA documents indicated that the agency was able to access "traffic from numerous banks."Mike Fish, Swift's chief information officer, said at a conference in Dubai on Monday that the interbank group had "no evidence to suggest that there has ever been any unauthorized use of our network or our data. We constantly monitor cybersecurity threats, and once we believe there's any risk to the security of the services, you can be certain we investigate very thoroughly," Fish said, based on a copy of his remarks furnished to Bloomberg by Swift.
Visa, based in San Francisco, stated that it was "not cognizant of any unauthorized access into our network. Visa takes data security seriously and, in response to any attempted intrusion, we'd pursue all available remedies to the fullest extent of the law. Further, it's Visa policy to only provide transaction information as a result of a subpoena or another valid legal process," the statement said.
Spiegel stated that the NSA's Tracfin database in 2011 was comprised of 180 million records, of which 84 % had been credit-card transactions.
Britain's communications-intelligence agency, known as GCHQ, privately expressed concerns about the effort, the magazine said. Quoting a GCHQ report on the legal implications of collecting, storing and sharing large quantities of financial data, it said the British agency considered those actions a deep invasion of privacy involving "rich personal information," much of which "is not about our targets."
NSA analysts said in an internal conference in 2010 that they had successfully searched Visa's credit-card transaction network to focus on customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Spiegel reported. Their goal was "to collect, parse and ingest transactional data for priority credit-card associations, focusing on priority geographic regions," the magazine said, quoting what it said was an NSA document from 2010.The NSA database Tracfin works with outside organizations such as Swift in Brussels to share bank data. Spiegal states that the NSA can access collected traffic from many banks worldwide.
Records of credit-card transactions flowed into an NSA database, called Tracfin, that also contains data on interbank transfers handled by Swift, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication in Brussels, Spiegel said. Spiegal said NSA documents indicated that the agency was able to access "traffic from numerous banks."Mike Fish, Swift's chief information officer, said at a conference in Dubai on Monday that the interbank group had "no evidence to suggest that there has ever been any unauthorized use of our network or our data. We constantly monitor cybersecurity threats, and once we believe there's any risk to the security of the services, you can be certain we investigate very thoroughly," Fish said, based on a copy of his remarks furnished to Bloomberg by Swift.
Visa, based in San Francisco, stated that it was "not cognizant of any unauthorized access into our network. Visa takes data security seriously and, in response to any attempted intrusion, we'd pursue all available remedies to the fullest extent of the law. Further, it's Visa policy to only provide transaction information as a result of a subpoena or another valid legal process," the statement said.
Spiegel stated that the NSA's Tracfin database in 2011 was comprised of 180 million records, of which 84 % had been credit-card transactions.
Britain's communications-intelligence agency, known as GCHQ, privately expressed concerns about the effort, the magazine said. Quoting a GCHQ report on the legal implications of collecting, storing and sharing large quantities of financial data, it said the British agency considered those actions a deep invasion of privacy involving "rich personal information," much of which "is not about our targets."
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