Exchange of information and financial crime in the United Kingdom

Can I share data with my colleagues? Can I share data with other agencies or organisations?The ability to legally share personal data with and between government departments, law enforcement bodies andthird parties in England and Wales is a complex issue. Public sector clients has asked these questions of Synalogik many times. In response, Synalogik Innovative Solutions commissioned a study from the UK’s leading academics in this field to address these challenges.Part 1: Sharing personal data with law enforcement bodies, between law enforcement bodies and in the context of criminal/civil investigations – examines If, how, and when such data can be shared, and how the key principles of the GPDR and the Data Protection Act 2018 do not prohibit personal data being shared with ‘competent authorities’ performing their ‘statutory duty’ in law enforcement functions.Part 2: The four case studies demonstrate the importance of financial intelligence and information exchange in combatting financial crimes. The case studies illustrate that, in practice, there are inherent flaws in the UK’s ability to obtain and exchange information to detect and address these financial crimes. Accordingly, this paper questions thefindings of the FATF MER that apply to financial intelligence and the exchange of information and suggests that the UK does not satisfactorily comply with international standards.Part 3: Discusses the most important and traditional AML/CTF countermeasures are the use of financial intelligence and the impact POCA, TACT, SARS and JMLIT have on Financial Terrorism. The large-scale instances of fraud and the increase in the amount of fraud demonstrates that the UK counter fraud strategy is failing are described with examples, and how financial intelligence is essential in combatting tax evasion

Regional differences in multidimensional aspects of health: findings from the MRC cognitive function and ageing study

BACKGROUND: Differences in mortality and health experience across regions are well recognised and UK government policy aims to address this inequality. Methods combining life expectancy and health have concentrated on specific areas, such as self-perceived health and dementia. Few have looked within country or across different areas of health. Self-perceived health, self-perceived functional impairment and cognitive impairment are linked closely to survival, as well as quality of life. This paper aims to describe regional differences in healthy life expectancy using a variety of states of health and wellbeing within the MRC Cognitive Function and Ageing Study (MRC CFAS). METHODS: MRC CFAS is a population based study of health in 13,009 individuals aged 65 years and above in five centres using identical study methodology. The interviews included self-perceived health and measures of functional and cognitive impairment. Sullivan's method was used to combine prevalence rates for cognitive and functional impairment and life expectancy to produce expectation of life in various health states. RESULTS: The prevalence of both cognitive and functional impairment increases with age and was higher in women than men, with marked centre variation in functional impairment (Newcastle and Gwynedd highest impairment). Newcastle had the shortest life expectancy of all the sites, Cambridgeshire and Oxford the longest. Centre differences in self-perceived health tended to mimic differences in life expectancy but this did not hold for cognitive or functional impairment. CONCLUSION: Self-perceived health does not show marked variation with age or sex, but does across centre even after adjustment for impairment burden. There is considerable centre variation in self-reported functional impairment but not cognitive impairment. Only variation in self-perceived health relates to the ranking of life expectancy. These data confirm that quite considerable differences in life experience exist across regions of the UK beyond basic life expectancy

The problems of protecting privacy and reputation online under English tort law: can "the right to be forgotten" provide the solution?

This thesis operates around a central premise: there is a lack of personality rights for individuals in England and Wales with respect to personal information on the internet. This thesis examines whether the ‘right to be forgotten’ also known as the ‘right to erasure’ in Article 17 of the General Data Protection Regulation 2016 (GDPR) and enshrined in the Data Protection Act 2018 will begin to remedy this problem. This PhD firstly examines what the ‘right to privacy’ actually is by turning to legal theory – and adopts a working definition. It then moves to consider aspects of the GDPR that have relevance to the right to be forgotten and its exemptions. The thesis as a whole conducts a normative analysis through the lens of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights – the right to private and family life. It draws on the breadth of Article 8 Strasbourg caselaw in order to extrapolate key ‘balancing principles’ which could be utilised by the English courts when interpreting the new erasure right. It also extrapolates principles from Strasbourg Article 10 (freedom of expression) caselaw, with suggestions on how these factors could be used by the courts when interpreting the right to erasure’s freedom of expression and journalism exemptions. Finally, it undertakes an assessment of both the English torts of misuse of private information and defamation. It highlights their failings and their patchwork protection of reputation-rights in respect of private information online. It strives to prove that the right to be forgotten, although not a perfect solution, does provide a better route to redress with respect to personal data online than both of the English torts currently in operation