EU to find SWIFT broke data privacy rules -CEO

BRUSSELS, Nov 17 (Reuters) European Union regulators are expected to find that international banking network SWIFT broke EU data privacy rules in giving the United States access to records of millions of private transactions, SWIFT's chief executive said today.

Leonard Schrank, CEO of the Brussels-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) insisted cooperation with the US Treasury in counter-terorrism probes had been ''absolutely legal'' and called for transatlantic talks to clarify privacy rules.

''This is why thousands of lives have been saved,'' he said repeating calls for the European Union and the US to elaborate common rules on data privacy, to allow authorities to conduct terrorism related investigations efficienty.

Asked whether he expected national data protection regulators from the 25 EU member states, meeting in Brussels next Tuesday and Wednesday, to conclude that SWIFT had broken European rules, Schrank told reporters: ''Yes.'' Schrank fiercly criticised the EU's advisory body for not contacting SWIFT and not taking the security issue seriously.

''They are just an advisory group but they can damage our reputation,'' he said.

SWIFT has been at the centre of a controversy since US media revealed it had allowed the Treasury Department to tap into its records to search for evidence for terrorism-related activities without informing European authorities.

REUTERS PDM RK1945