The federal Finance department says its efforts to fight financial crime need more funding and greater data gathering.

In a report published Thursday, Finance makes six recommendations based on the conclusions drawn from this evaluation. Most important, it calls for the government to maintain the current funding for the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, at a minimum, and boosting short-term funding for FINTRAC’s IT needs, and the RCMP to boost its investigative capabilities. And, it recommends that the government consider increasing the amount of information included in FINTRAC disclosures.

The report notes the financial crime fighting initiative faces a number of resource pressures. “One key pressure concerns technology at FINTRAC, for which there is currently no infrastructure ‘evergreening’ (renewal) or disaster recovery support budget and only limited IT capital investment flexibility,” it says. “The primary arguments for increased funding for technology renewal are to keep up with advancements in the technology used by both organized crime and financial institutions, as well as to replace outdated IT equipment, to acquire the newest computer security and spam control mechanisms, and to enable the maintenance of critical IT operations in the event of an incident.”

It adds the Cross-Border Currency Reporting program also faces resources pressures, noting that the number of currency seizures and forfeitures has far exceeded initial expectations, owing to the work of CBCR Teams and Currency Detector Dog Teams, “thus warranting future expansion to combat money laundering/terrorist financing”.

The report also suggests that privacy and civil rights concerns are hampering this initiative. “There are indications from law enforcement and national security agencies that insufficient information is being provided by FINTRAC in its disclosures, as the provisions of the Act and the Charter appear to limit the amount of information that can be disclosed,” it notes. It recommends that the government consider legislative amendments so that disclosures can be expanded.

Among the other recommendations, it says that the existing evaluation model must be reassessed; that a similar evaluation should be carried out within the next five years; that the government should maintain its commitment to fighting money laundering and terrorist financing; and, that it continue to consult with the financial services sector to mitigate the potential for compliance fatigue.

Overall, the report says that the initiative has made good progress toward achieving its formal objectives. So far, Canada has met 27 of 28 key operational FATF anti-ML recommendations (out of 40), and has met six of seven special TF recommendations that were assessed.