FINTRAC
FINTRAC is Canada’s financial-intelligence and anti-money-laundering regulator, whose record-keeping and reporting rules explain why some personal records must be retained — and must not be anonymized or deleted.
The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) administers the *Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act (PCMLTFA)*. Reporting entities — banks, money-services businesses, real-estate brokers, casinos, and others — must verify client identity, keep detailed records, and report large or suspicious transactions.
These obligations matter for privacy because they create a legal duty to retain certain personal information for defined periods (often five years). That duty can override a customer’s deletion or anonymization request — the data must be kept to satisfy AML law.
Understanding which records fall under FINTRAC rules is essential before applying data-minimization or anonymization to financial datasets.
