If you think its just the National Security Agency (NSA) that pokes its nose in your privacy then you are wrong. American Intelligence Agency CIA is following NSA’s footsteps by collecting information from money-transfer companies especially Western Union, building a database of international money transfer data.
CIA collects such information under the shadow of same provision of the Patriot Act that allows the National Security Agency (NSA) to collect personal information and phone records of every American citizen. The collected data includes personal and financial details of millions of Americans.
Last month the spokesman at Western Union said that company is spending about 4% of its annual revenue in 2014 on compliance with rules under the Patriot Act, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and other anti-money-laundering and terrorist-financing requirements.
Dan Díaz who is Western Union’s spokesman told the media that it collects personal information of customers in order to comply with the US laws and Bank Secrecy Act. During this process we make sure that customers’ privacy is protected and all kinds of consumer frauds are prevented.
