IEIM406040 - Redaction of information on human rights grounds: Threats to human rights

The Human Rights Act 1998 and European Convention on Human Rights establish the rights of individuals. Some rights are absolute and some are qualified – meaning they can be interfered with where that is necessary and proportionate.

If a Financial Institution considers that the information it is required to provide under the AEOI agreements may result in a threat to the rights of reportable account holders, such as grant recipients of a charity, or those connected with them, then it may apply to HMRC for the information to be redacted from exchange.

An entity that is a Financial Institution has a legal obligation to report the information required under the AEOI rules to HMRC. However, where HMRC agrees that the exchange of such information may result in a threat to someone’s human rights, HMRC will redact that information from the information that is exchanged. The Financial Institution must still report the information to HMRC, to comply with its obligations.

If an individual has concerns about a risk to their own rights they should also get in touch with HMRC to explain the relevant risk to enable HMRC to take appropriate action.

It should be noted that HMRC has undertaken relevant data protection and privacy assessments and we do not consider that individuals’ Article 8 privacy rights are disproportionately interfered with by AEOI. Our exchanges of information are also consistent with the General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). HMRC will not therefore redact any information on this basis alone.

Further information about the rights under the articles of the Human Rights Act can be found at https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/human-rights/human-rights-act

Information redacted

Where HMRC agree to redact data about a particular grant recipient or group of recipients then all details relating to those individuals and/or entities will be removed from the information exchanged. HMRC will not send partial information as this could lead to unintended identification of individuals.