Despite a 2009 warning not to collect and keep data unnecessarily, an audit has shown that Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC), the department responsible for monitoring financial institutions for fraud and terrorist funding indicators, is collecting more personal information than it needs, reports The Ottawa Citizen. Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart says she has “serious concerns about the extent to which FINTRAC’s information holdings are populated with personal information that should never have even been submitted,” and Assistant Commissioner Chantal Bernier said the office wants to see FINTRAC working harder to educate financial institutions about what information should be sent, as well as setting up a system to eliminate personal details prior to data entering the agency database.
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