Madoff data can be extradited back to US

Data which is protected by the Data Protection Act can be transferred to the US to help in the investigation of companies run by Bernard Madoff, the High Court has said. The transfer would usually be barred but is justified in this case, the Court said. The Data Protection Act (DPA) forbids the export of personal data to …

[Ash]

Excellent!

Data about massive fraud can be exchanged. Wonderful, yet boring.

In other, MUCH more important news, Czech brewing firm Budejovicky Budvar has succesfully prevented American cold-piss producing Anheuser-Busch from obtaining a trademark for the term "Budweiser" in Europe! ELATION! http://www.out-law.com//default.aspx?page=9906

My only issue is that in the UK I can't ask for a "Bud" and get Budvar; It's automatically the yank knock-off.

[Tom]

Thats nice

we send them private personal information and they send money to shoot people in NI.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not quite true

"The Data Protection Act (DPA) forbids the export of personal data to countries where privacy protection is poor. Data cannot be sent outside of the European Economic Area except to countries which are deemed to have 'adequate' data protection. The US is not one of those countries."

The exeption being BT who exported personal data to Phorm servers in the USA, and when complaints were made, no action was taken. Not to mention all the Data leaks from the BT servers which exposed a huge amount of personal data to the world, again no action was taken against BT so they obviously are above the law.

All the investigators needed to do in this case was place the data on the servers at BT, and save the cost of the legal case.

[DR]

so it's illegal to send data to the US

and other countries...

so how did that database that went missing in the states end up there?

how come companies are allowed to have billing centres, and call centres, in countries like India?

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words...

The US asks and GB and friends drop their pants and ask if they also want something for the weekend.

Re: so it's illegal to send data to the US

Illegal or not I believe details of all swift transactions processed in europe also get handed over to the US.

[Anonymous Coward]

Says who the Phorm servers were in the USA?

I hadn't heard that. All the publicity made out that these were boxes installed directly in BT's own infrastructure, in their data centers. No?

[Anonymous Coward]

@In other words

"Illegal or not I believe details of all swift transactions processed in europe also get handed over to the US."

They are, but it's not as big a land grab as it appears - there are controls on what happens. They can't just grab every transaction, it needs to be documented and there is a record of what they get.

However, AFAIK certain nations are in the process of building localised SWIFT exchanges which keeps at least local traffic local and under control. Not everyone bends over like the UK and Belgium do..