The Verkhovna Rada plans to adopt a law obliging banks to disclose data to clients at the request of the police, writes the Ukrainian “Forensic Legal Newspaper”.
The Ukrainian parliament will soon consider a second reading of a bill to improve the functions of the National Bank for state regulation of financial services markets. Several new rules were introduced in the bill. A new basis has been established for banks to disclose information about legal entities and individuals that constitutes bank secrecy. Now, in the case of a request from the National Police, the payment service provider is obliged to provide information about the payment transaction to the user as soon as possible (but not later than 24 hours after receipt), if such transaction contains signs of a crime committed.
As noted by the Chief Legal Department of the Parliament, we are talking about an extremely wide range of information. However, the grounds for sending such a request are not limited in any way. “It is also unclear how the payment service provider will determine whether the transaction contains signs of a criminal offense”, the publication quoted a representative of the department.
According to experts, this legislative approach does not take into account the requirements of Article 32, Part Two of the Constitution regarding the protection of confidential personal information. In addition, the text of the draft law does not contain legal norms that would bind the limitations of citizens' rights introduced by law to the interests of national security, economic well-being and human rights. Therefore, introducing the dissemination of “information about all relevant properties (assets) and liabilities of persons”, which is confidential information, without the consent of the owners of this data, “is unreasonable, disproportionate and does not take into account the requirements of Article 3 of the Constitution of Ukraine“, the publication emphasizes.