Georgios Demetriades participated at the University of Cambridge’s 37th International Symposium on Economic Crime

Neapolis University’s Assistant Professor in Law, Dr. Georgios Demetriades participated as a Keynote Speaker at this year’s International Symposium on Economic Crime, participating in a session related to the potential liability of financial institutions and individuals in disclosing private information to public bodies and on occasion to third parties.

The Cambridge Symposium has established itself as a unique vehicle for promoting, at a truly international level, greater understanding of the real and practical issues involved in preventing and controlling economic crime, corruption and abuse, and thereby facilitating meaningful co-operation.

The Symposium took place at Jesus College, University of Cambridge and more than 1,000 delegates attended, including Attorney Generals, international ministers, MPs, judges, lawyers and academics from across the world.  The overall theme of the event was “Fighting Economic Crime – A Shared Responsibility”

Dr. Demetriades presented to the Symposium on the subject of “Exchange of information: Privacy, Data Protection and Financial Crime.” During his speech he acknowledged that the sharing of information and intelligence between financial institutions and public bodies is a necessary evil but as a result sensitive information may move to several institutions and jurisdictions.

The enactment of the European regulation, GDPR and several other legal instruments, prohibit the processing of special category personal data and request additional special conditions, as explicit consent or substantial public interest, in order to permit the processing of information. Financial institutions acting in their capacity as data controllers must therefore be mindful of all these requirements since, further to huge fines, their reputation and their clients’ trust is in stake.