Abstract

Financial transactions data are increasingly considered valuable in the context of security threats, yet they are particularly privacy sensitive. At present, 166 Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) worldwide are able to share financial intelligence via the Egmont Group, their joint platform. This paper analyses the politics and practices of transnational financial intelligence sharing, with a particular emphasis on the Egmont Group. We draw on literatures at the intersection between political economy and financial security to analyse how FIU practitioners rely on what we call ‘circuits of trust’ that enable them to engage in a politics of data-sharing. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and participant observation, we examine three practices: the role of trust in navigating the ‘legal grey zone’ in which FIU data are shared; the way in which trust circuits make intelligence sharing possible; and the implicit notions of (un)trustworthiness at work when FIUs share intelligence, leading to inclusion and exclusion. We aim to push forward the conversation about economic trust practices by observing how the circuit of trust operates in everyday practice, making the sharing of financial intelligence (im)possible.

摘要

在安全威胁的背景下，金融交易数据越来越被认为是有价值的，但它们对隐私特别敏感。目前，全球有 166 个金融情报机构 (FIU) 能够通过其联合平台 Egmont Group 共享金融情报。本文分析了跨国金融情报共享的政治和实践，特别强调了埃格蒙特集团。我们利用政治经济学和金融安全交叉领域的文献来分析金融情报机构从业者如何依赖我们所谓的“信任回路”，使他们能够参与数据共享政治。利用半结构化访谈和参与者观察，我们研究了三种做法：信任在驾驭共享金融情报机构数据的“法律灰色地带”中的作用；信任回路使情报共享成为可能的方式；以及当金融情报机构共享情报时工作中隐含的（不）可信度概念，导致包容和排斥。我们的目标是通过观察信任回路在日常实践中的运作方式，推动有关经济信任实践的对话，从而使金融情报共享成为可能（不可能）。