ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Olivier O and Daniela W, the two Swiss hostages who were captured by a Taliban group in Pakistan while they were on an overland trip through Asia, arrived back home Saturday. They flew into Zurich airport where they were reunited with their families and they then met with the task force that worked to free them.
The Bern couple were captured 1 July 2011. They repeated in a public statement Saturday what they told Pakistan army officers, when they turned up at an army post Thursday 15 March that after a lengthy deliberation and despite the great risks, they decided to make their escape. “We went through some very difficult times, which have left permanent scars. During the entire time we lived in a state of insecurity and feared for our lives.”
The pair have asked for their privacy to be respected so they can try to get back to normal, saying they don’t know how long the recovery process will be, a request repeated by the federal government.
There have been reports that a ransom was paid for them and scores of Taliban prisoners released from prisons in Pakistan in exchange for their release, information diffused by Fata Research Center* (Fata report), which the Swiss Foreign Affairs Department has denied firmly.
RTS, Swiss public broadcasting, carries a short video of their arrival in Zurich.
*Fata Research Center describes itself as: “FRC is a non partisan and non-political research organization based in Islamabad. It’s the first ever think-tank of its kind that focuses on Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA) in its entirety. The purpose of FRC is to help the concerned stake holders better understand this war-ravaged area of Pakistan with independent research and analysis.”
Swiss Parliament, Bern
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The lower house of the Swiss parliament Monday 5 March voted strongly in favour of an amended US-Swiss tax treaty, 116-52, thus backing a vote by the upper house in December 2011.
Some foreign media coverage of the vote implies that the treaty is designed to help out 11 Swiss banks under investigation by the US Justice Department for illegally assisting Americans in the US to hide money offshore from the IRS, the tax arm of the US.
But the treaty was in fact agreed to in June 2011 by both governments. Credit Suisse announced in June 2011 that it was being investigated by the US Department of Justice and the cantonal bank in Basel nearly a year ago, while other banks, whose names were announced only in January 2012, apparently became aware of the investigations late in 2011.
The revised treaty grew out of negotiations that had been going on since the 2009 debacle where the Swiss government approved UBS turning over data on thousands of bank clients as part of a deal with the US.
The death of banking secrecy greatly exaggerated?
The right-wing UDC has been vocal in opposing the treaty, arguing that it signals the death of banking secrecy and is financial suicide, while some Swiss-German media have been making dire predictions for months, often reported as news from unnamed sources, about the impact of such a vote. Both have been picked up widely outside Switzerland as a sign that the treaty signals the end of banking secrecy, a view not held by many middle of the road politicians and the government, as well as the Bankers Association, which 22 February came out in favour of a regulation that would require offshore banking clients to make tax self-declarations. RTS, public broadcasting, says there has been a significant shift in banking secrecy since 2009, but Switzerland continues to support it as part of a broader respect for privacy. Today’s vote, it notes, should allow US-Swiss talks over American investigations into Swiss banks to move ahead.
The treaty is designed to replace a 1996 treaty, currently in effect. Both provide for judicial assistance in cases of tax fraud, but the new treaty defines the framework for this more precisely and admits tax evasion as well as fraud, in some cases, as grounds for a request for assistance.
Tax evasion is a crime, but not a penal offense in Switzerland, whose list of allowable tax deductions is far shorter than those of the IRS, and evasion has until now not been accepted as grounds for assistance.
New agreement amended in November
The June agreement was amended in November after a parliamentary commission recommended, 7-3, that this addition be made: it allows for group requests covering several financial accounts to be made together and, significantly, bank data could be given to US authorities without the US first providing a name and account number, although this assistance would be provided in a very limited number of cases. The change was initially expected to face stiff opposition in Parliament, but in the end it passed with a strong majority.
Switzerland and the US have been discussing, in separate talks, the case of the 11 Swiss banks under investigation by the US Department of Justice. The Swiss government in late January approved the delivery of coded bank data to the US as a goodwill gesture, with President Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf noting that the data could be decoded once the two countries reach a “global agreement”: “We will only decode when we have found a solution with the United States on all the banks that are under discussion.”
UK, Germany should revise part of agreements with Swiss, says EU tax head
European Union Tax Commissioner Algirdas Semeta said in a letter to Denmark’s prime minister 5 March that the UK and Germany will need to revise part of the tax agreements they have negotiated with Switzerland since last summer. Bloomberg reports that “when countries make bilateral tax agreements with other nations, EU policy calls for them to leave out any areas covered by a common European framework, Semeta said. In the case of savings income, the bloc has existing information-exchange rules and is working on additional measures related to interest payments, ownership stakes and the 27-nation EU’s relationship with Switzerland, he said.”
Semeta’s remarks were more positive than earlier EU threats to sue Switzerland for working out bilateral deals with two of its member countries.
Background story, GenevaLunch, “Swiss government raises the ante for banks, other countries”, 22 February 2012
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Data privacy concern is increasingly raising its head in US-Swiss talks over taxes, visas and banking. The latest incident is linked to Switzerland’s decision to continue participating in the US visa waiver programme.
Parliament will have its say in US data demands for visa waiver programme
The Swiss Federal Council Wednesday 1 February made it clear it intends to move ahead with negotiations with the US in order to remain in the US visa waiver programme. Switzerland has been part of the programme since 1986 but in October 2009 the US announced that partners in the programme would have to observe two new rules, says Bern. They were told that “partner countries will be required to increase police cooperation. This will entail the conclusion of agreements about the automatic exchange of DNA and fingerprint data to prevent and to combat serious crime (PCSC) and the exchange of data about known and suspected terrorists.”
Swiss media and politicians have been speculating in recent weeks that the US has been pressuring the Swiss government to agree to the new rules and that, given Switzerland’s penchant for privacy and data protection, the Swiss government would refuse. Some 340,000 Swiss travel to the US every year and the visa waiver programme means they can visit as a tourist for up to three months without first obtaining a visa.
But Bern now says it plans to go ahead with the negotiations, noting, however, its own ground rules. The US “requires that two agreements in the security area should be finalized. The Federal Council has instructed the Federal Department of Justice and Police (FDJP) to formulate a negotiation mandate in this area. Parliament and the Cantons will be consulted before the final granting of the mandate. Data protection aspects will be duly taken into account in the negotiation of the agreements.”
Double taxation treaty talks bring up data release questions
Bern gives green light to send thousands of e-mails, but they remain encrypted
The sensitive issue comes up just as the lower house of parliament’s tax commission announced, 31 January, that Swiss President and Finance Minister, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf had brought it up to date on US-Swiss double taxation treaty negotiations. Details were not provided except to say that the discussion covered interpretations of “judicial assistance”, a sticking point in the negotiations, and “recent demands by the US”, without elaborating on these.
Swiss-German public radio DSR reported, however, that some 4 to 6 million e-mails, mainly correspondence about banks’ commercial affairs, were being offered to the US by at least some of the 11 banks currently under investigation by the US Department of Justice—but that the correspondance is encrypted and will not be decrypted until the two countries reach an agreement. The e-mails contain the names of client advisers. The banks are suspected by the US government of helping US citizens evade taxes.
Encryption until “global solution” found
Spokesperson Roland Meier of the Federal Finance Department then confirmed to journalists the information published by DSR. He noted that until a “global solution” is found with American judicial authorities, names that are encrypted may not be released unless a legal request is made to Swiss authorities, repeating what Widmer-Schlumpf said on television, “We will only decode when we have found a solution with the United States on all the banks that are under discussion.”
A legal request would need to respect the existing Swiss-US treaty and specifically state that the actions of the person whose information is being requested is punishable under both Swiss and US law. Details, TSR, French
Analysis, in French: Martin Naville, president of the Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce, analyzed the situation in a video interview with RSR radio, “Les choses ont changé” (6 minutes, free but registration required)
Switzerland’s vocal Americans joined by even louder Canadians
Americans in Switzerland, meanwhile, are expressing growing concern about their ability to maintain bank accounts for their daily living expenses, mortgages and pensions, with Swiss banks growing more wary of them as clients given US demands for information. A particular sticking point is the Fatca (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) law that starting in 2014 will penalize financial institutions around the world that don’t comply by revealing the accounts of US persons to the IRS and collect tax withholdings for the IRS from them.
Switzerland’s Americans were some of the first US citizens abroad to become aware of the problem, because of Swiss data protection issues and US efforts to obtain information from Swiss banks. But Americans living in Canadai are becoming increasingly vocal in their resistance to US efforts to obtain data. The larger US expat community in Canada recently formed the Isaac Brock Society, named after Sir Isaac Brock, who prepared Canadians for war with the United States and gave his life in repelling a US invasion in 1812, according to their site.
Three employees have been fired and two suspended at the University of Iowa Hospitals in the US for breaching patient privacy in a case involved 13 Iowa Hawkeyes football players, the university announced 3 February. The 13 have contracted a rare disease, rhabdomyolysis, according to their coach, and the hospital has been searching for the cause of the disease. It is unclear, while the hospital investigation goes on, if the five leaked the information, to which they had electronic access, to the public or media.
AP reports that the disease “causes muscle fibers to be released into the bloodstream and can cause kidney damage. They checked into the hospital last week complaining of soreness and discolored urine after undergoing intense workouts following winter break. The players spent several days getting treatment and were all discharged by Sunday.”
The Iowa Hawkeyes football team is currently ranked fourth in the Big Ten of US college football.
Links to other sites: CBS sports, ESPN, U of Iowa press release
Federal Council will consult on plan for how big banks can fail, negotiate withholding tax on foreigners’ accounts
Measles, tougher penal sentences, electricity suppliers, corporate tax rates all on the 2011 schedule
Swiss Federal Council (cabinet): government publishes its 2011 agenda
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss Government, fresh from the defeat of its counter-initiative in the vote on foreign convicts 28 November, has set out an ambitious agenda for work it expects to complete in 2011. This will be the final session before a new parliament is elected 23 October 2011.
Two pieces of legislation, one calling for a tougher penal code and the other for greater efforts to integrate foreigners into Swiss society, were planned before the weekend vote, but they must now be coordinated with a constitutional change, the results of the 28 November popular initiative, where Swiss voters chose automatic expulsion of foreign convicts.
Negotiations over undeclared assets in Swiss banks confirmed
The council confirmed Tuesday that negotiations are already underway with some countries, and it intends to open negotiations with other key countries, to “regularize” undeclared assets coming to Swiss banks from outside Switzerland. The main tool Switzerland intends to use is a withholding tax but the government says the negotiations will also include a commitment by the Swiss to “ensure, as far as possible, that undeclared assets from [countries with negotiations] will not in future come to Switzerland”.
Bankruptcy proceedings for key banks would limit pay, free trade agreements get priority
The cabinet will consult with interested parties on the details of how banks that are critical to the national financial system would be allowed to move into bankruptcy if they fail. A particular aspect of this is the decision by the government to limit payment to bankers for any financial institution that comes under the government’s care. Wide consultation on drafts for new laws with major impact is standard procedure in Switzerland and proposed legislation is then revised based on feedback before it goes to parliament.
Trade talks to be accelerated
Debate grows over how much web site owners should tell visitors about information gleaned
What is my mouse telling web site owners?
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – The news that Google and the CIA are teaming up to predict the future based on what we’re already doing online has prompted yet another media debate over privacy and how much information is spilled by our online behaviour.
Spooks might worry the public but our use of the Internet is already providing a wealth of details many of us never consider.
A pair of students at Emory University in the US have just shown, at the SIGIR conference on information retrieval, at Unimail in Geneva in late July, how our mouse movements can tell companies whether we intend to buy or not, when we’re shopping online (Agichtein and Guo paper, pdf).
Such clues could provide valuable information for advertisers, say the authors. “The results show that our method is more effective than the current state-of-the-art techniques, both for detection of searcher goals, and for an important practical application of predicting ad clicks for a given search session.”
Advertising Age has jumped into the debate about how much web site owners should tell their customers, about the information they are able to gather, with an article arguing that sites should be more open about the information they receive about visitors.
©2010 Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
Olivier Glassey
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – “Our definition of privacy is fast-evolving right now and we don’t control it,” says Olivier Glassey, from the University of Lausanne. But don’t panic.
“I believe privacy is gone for good,” argues Christian Heller, a self-described “futurist” who relishes taking the debate a step further. Heller likes to remind his listeners that privacy was not a common notion in the Middle Ages, when people lived in small, tightly interwoven communities.
The two were part of a presentation on the redefinition of privacy at the Lift 2010 conference in Geneva Wednesday 5 May.
Teenagers understand privacy and they have their own definition, says Glassey, but a dilemma as the Facebook generation grows up and their elders catch up with them, is how to ensure forgetfulness. “One of the main challenges will be the long-term memory of privacy,” he points out.
Christian Heller
People use social networks like Facebook to recreate their lives, to record their biographies, and this role of social networking has not yet been sufficiently studied. “We need to build in social forgiveness.” Criminals but also the rest of us, who routinely commit small sins that we want to forget, and we want others to forget, should be allowed to fade away, but how do we do that digitally?
Heller reminded his audience that we tend to forget: the 20th century was a time when privacy replaced a more openly shared, more public life, and the shift has not always a positive thing: privacy can also mean loneliness and shame.
Ed. note: WRS radio carries an audio interview with Glassey and Anil de Mello
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The US began tightening security checks on international flights into the country Monday 4 January, including using more body scans, but the number of voices objecting to the scannerss is growing. Britain’s prime minister, Gordon Brown, Sunday promised to gradually introduce more of the scanners, but privacy and civil liberties groups say using the machines may break child pornography laws, reports the Guardian. A US congressman, Jason Chaffetz, argues that a bill is needed to protect privacy in the US. The bill has passed the House in Congress and is now under consideration by the US Senate.
The new measures are being taken in the wake of the 25 December suicide bomber attack on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam, The Netherlands, to Detroit, Michigan in the US.
The world had 2.2 billion air passengers in the 12 months to September 2009, 820 million of which were international travelers, and 140 million of these were international travelers on US routes.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Google and the Swiss data protection boss, Hanspeter Thuer, Thursday 17 December reached a temporary agreement on Google Street View while a Swiss government lawsuit is pending against the company. Google will refrain from activating Google Street View, under the terms of the agreement, as well as any other Street Views in Switzerland taken for other Google products. Google has also agreed to accept as binding a court decision on the matter “and is ready to implement it with regard to images recorded for Street View in Switzerland, if and to the extent that the award requests so”, according to the official Swiss government announcement on the agreement.
Google nevertheless retains the right to use its cameras, at its own risk, while the court case is underway, but it cannot use the image on the Internet. The company has also agreed to move from monthly to weekly alerts to communities and neighbourhoods about its plans to film in their areas.
Update 16:00 Genthod, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Russian media have been carrying stories about the accident Thursday 19 November in Genthod where a Lambhorgini driven by a 22-year-old Russian crashed into a Golf driven by a 70-year-old German, both resident in the Geneva area. The older man is in serious condition in the hospital. The Russian articles and a flood of comments and e-mail received by GenevaLunch are focusing on the likely names of those involved, with children of politicians and rich businessmen heading the top of the list of suspects. The names are openly published in Russia, with one notable family mentioned in the Guardian Tuesday afternoon.
In Switzerland, the Tribune de Geneve/24Heures published a story Tuesday afternoon saying three of those involved left Geneva Sunday on a private jet, thus avoiding having to give evidence to a Geneva judge. (Ed. note: the story cites “our sources” without details and appeared after Russian media reports).
Part of a Google street view of Geneva's rue du Rhone, faces blurred in line with Swiss privacy laws
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Google maps, the application from internet giant Google, just released a new version of its maps application that includes street views, seamless 360° views of the centre of most Swiss cities. Taken by vans that cruised around the city centre taking countless photographs, the project has caused concern around the world because of the implicatons for privacy.
