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Written Question

Question Link

Wednesday 5th July 2017

Asked by: Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Home Office:

Her Majesty's Government how many Suspicious Activity Reports are outstanding on the Elmer Database.

Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)

There are 2.11 million suspicious activity reports (SARs) on the Elmer database. These SARs remain on the system either as result of ongoing activity from a law enforcement agency, or because the SAR is within the six year period for which data can be held on Elmer, in line with the ECHR and Data Protection legislation. In 2015/16 the UKFIU received over 400,000 SARs. Each SAR may include detail of the activities of a number of persons, and it is therefore not possible to determine how many nominal subjects are within the database.

Following the House of Lords European Union Committee Inquiry into Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism in July 2009, and the Information Commissioner’s review of the ELMER database in 2010, the UK Financial Intelligence Unit (UKFIU) has implemented the Retention and Deletion policy for Suspicious Activity Reports. This sets the following criteria for the removal of SARs:

o If definitive feedback is received from law enforcement end users that states a SAR is not connected with criminality, that SAR is deleted.

o Otherwise, the retention period for SARs is six years from the date of submission. After that time they are automatically deleted from the SARs database (ELMER) and other derivative systems, on a rolling daily deletion programme.

o When a SAR is deleted, an audit record showing the SAR Unique Reference Number (URN), date of creation and date of deletion is retained for all SARs. This record contains no personal data, but is used to confirm, if necessary, that a SAR has been submitted.

o There are occasions when, after six years, a SAR still forms part of an on-going case, investigation or appeal and is entirely the responsibility of the end user to ensure that copies of the required SARs are transferred to the investigating agency’s ‘case record’. The data control responsibility for those records is then transferred from the NCA to that agency.

The UKFIU has access to the entire Elmer database, which includes ‘sensitive’ SARs such as those submitted on terrorism, integrity and some politically exposed persons.

SARs are only directly available to agencies with officers with powers under the Proceeds of Crime Act, or under the Terrorism Act (for terrorist finance), and only with officers who have an accreditation enabling them to see SARs. All such access is governed by user agreements at both an agency and individual level. For other organisations to qualify for access to the non-sensitive version of ELMER, they must accept the terms of ‘The Organisation Agreement for Direct Access to Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs)’ which sets the objectives, responsibilities and conditions within which both the NCA and the end user must comply.

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