Dutch Foundation Requests Human Rights Evaluation of AMLD5
Human Rights in Finance formally requests a human rights evaluation from the European Commission on the EU's 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive, citing privacy infringements and procedural abuse
Last month, the Dutch Foundation Human Rights in Finance formally requested a human rights evaluation from the European Commission on the EU's 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive, also known as AMLD5.
The requests states that "particularly in the financial sector the right to privacy, the right to a fair trial, the innocence presumption, the right to property, the right to not be discriminated/profiled and the right to access to health care, universal services (via a the right to a bank account) are violated due to the excessive regulations and policy initiatives initiated and driven by the European Commission".
The request states that a "human rights evaluation under AMLD5 article 65g has never been made and [...] procedures have been abused in order to speedily adopt new rules, rather than first evaluate the old rules, evaluate human rights impacts and then draw up new rules".
According to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, any law implemented in the EU must respect fundamental rights, such as the right to a private life.
The request references the failure of the European Commission to respond to the Dutch Government's "continued infringements" of human rights by failing to stop the joint transaction monitoring company Transaction Monitoring Netherlands (TMNL), a collaboration between the Netherlands' five largest banks to pool and analyze banking transactions to heighten efficiency of AML/CFT efforts.
Simon Leliveldt, HRIF Chairman, states that "it is my personal and professional opinion as well as the opinion of the foundation HRIF.EU that the root cause of this massive privacy infringement is due to a lack of respect by EU institutions for the rules that they drafted themselves with respect to careful and better regulation and evaluation of human rights".
The request is accompanied by a legal opinion commissioned on the "potential criminality" of TMNL, finding that the transmission of banking transaction data "fulfills all elements" of unlawfully copying and storing personal information under Dutch penal code, "and can therefore be considered a criminal offense".
TMNL wound down operations in July 2024.
