These are the 5 Reasons why the Travel Rule Violates Fundamental Rights !
Over on Medium, our chairman Simon Lelieveldt, has published an article which outlines why the so-called Travel rule of the Financial Action Task Force, forcing companies to broadcast personal customer data unrequested – all around the world – to their business partners, should be considered unlawful under EU rules.
In brief the five key arguments are:
- There is no EU-obligation to implement human right infringing rules due to international norms/standards/rules/resolutions of any kind and the Court of Justice will always act as a goalkeeper in this respect
- It’s far beyond other legal precedents of Court of Justice on surveillance
- The travel rule does not meet legal norms for bulk surveillance regimes
- For crypto in EU: it’s internally inconsistent to use a threshold of 0 euro in ‘risk-based’ regulation
- Analytical flaw: why answer unasked questions?
Powerplay or are law suits just a matter of time?
Although the reality is that customers (and companies) will be forced to comply with the travel rule, banks and crypto providers should realize that citing Regulation 2023/1113 as a legitimate legal basis for mass personal data distribution is a farce. The travel rule was and is an unlawful violation of fundamental rights, and customers are legally correct in objecting to the processing of their data. If a customer suffers harm due to this, they are entitled to compensation.
It seems to be just a matter of time before the first lawsuits clarify this. Hopefully, the Court of Justice will not only annul the travel rule for crypto but also for the banking sector entirely. However, this could take years.
That still shouldn’t stop crypto providers and customers from doing the right thing: not apply the rule in order to allow a legal analysis and discussion at the Court of Justice to validate its lawfulness.