Nigel Farage has formally accused the NatWest Group of passing his private and monetary knowledge to the BBC.
The previous Brexit Celebration chief has additionally complained to the Data Commissioner about the best way wherein his private particulars have been dealt with by NatWest and its subsidiary, Coutts Financial institution.
A letter from his attorneys to the Data Commissioner’s Workplace (ICO) mentions a BBC information report which claimed he was dropping his account at Coutts as a result of he had fallen beneath a required £1m threshold.
Mr Farage made a Knowledge Topic Entry Request [DSAR] to Coutts to find why his account was being closed.
He revealed he had acquired a 40-page doc displaying he met the “standards for business retention” however Coutts – a financial institution additionally utilized by the Royal Household – needed him to depart due to his views, which ranged from his place on LGBTQ+ rights to his friendship with former US president Donald Trump.
Mr Farage tweeted on Saturday: “The BBC report offers rise to the inescapable conclusion that NatWest Group supplied the media with confidential info (and private knowledge) concerning my monetary affairs.
“This might represent a severe knowledge breach and, worse nonetheless, disregard consumer confidentiality by the financial institution.
“My authorized workforce have written to the ICO asking them to research and take motion.”
Please use Chrome browser for a extra accessible video participant 1:24 Farage desires assessment of banking business
On Friday, the BBC up to date its on-line report on the matter, which mentioned Mr Farage “fell beneath the monetary threshold required to carry an account at Coutts”.
The state broadcaster mentioned: “We acknowledge that the knowledge we reported – that Coutts’ choice on Nigel Farage’s account didn’t contain issues about his political opinions – turned out to not be correct.”
It added: “Now we have amended this text’s headline and duplicate to clarify that the small print in regards to the closure of Nigel Farage’s checking account got here from a supply.”
The letter from Mr Farage’s attorneys to the ICO states: “The content material of the BBC report offers rise to the inescapable conclusion that the financial institution was offering confidential info comprising Mr Farage’s private knowledge about his monetary affairs to the press, which, on the face of it, would represent a severe knowledge breach by the financial institution.”
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The letter provides that following Mr Farage’s knowledge request, the “info that was apparently given to the BBC by Coutts or somebody throughout the NatWest Group was at finest incomplete and at worst intentionally deceptive”.
It goes on: “The knowledge given to the BBC was additionally not absolutely correct in relation to the provide of different banking services at NatWest; Mr Farage was solely supplied an alternate present account, and was not supplied an alternate enterprise account.”
Mr Farage has a “sense of profound injustice and concern for huge societal implications of the financial institution’s conduct”, the letter says.
On Thursday, NatWest Group CEO Dame Alison Rose wrote to Mr Farage to apologise.
Picture: The apology letter written to Nigel Farage
However the letter from his authorized workforce to the ICO provides: “Conspicuously, she didn’t apologise for any info that had been handed to the media citing insufficient funds as the rationale for the closure of his accounts.”
