top of page

General Exemption

This exemption at section 25 applies if you process personal information for the purposes of:

  • the prevention and detection of crime and compliance with international obligations regarding the detection, investigation and prevention of crime;

  • the apprehension or prosecution of offenders; or

  • the assessment or collection of any tax or duty;

  • the prevention, investigation, detection and prosecution of breaches of ethics for regulated professionals; or

  • the economic and financial interest of Bermuda, including monetary, budgetary and taxation matters, compliance with international tax treaties and any monitoring, inspection or regulatory function exercised by official authorities for monetary, budgetary and taxation purposes in Bermuda.

 

It exempts you from PIPA provisions under Parts 2 and 3 on:

  • the right to be informed;

  • all the other individual rights;

  • notifying individuals of personal information breaches;

  • the lawfulness and fairness principle, except the requirement to use personal information in a lawful manner;

  • the purpose limitation principle; and

  • all the other principles, but only so far as they relate to the right to be informed and the other individual rights.

 

However, the exemption only applies to the extent that complying with these provisions would be likely to prejudice your purposes of use of personal information. If this is not so, you must comply with PIPA as normal.

 

 Scenario

A bank conducts an investigation into suspected financial fraud. The bank wants to pass its investigation file, including the personal information of several customers, to the Financial Intelligence Agency (FIA) for further investigation. The bank’s investigation and proposed disclosure to the FIA are for the purposes of the prevention and detection of crime. The bank decides that, were it to inform the individuals in question about this processing of their personal information, this would be likely to prejudice the investigation because they might abscond or destroy evidence. Therefore, the bank relies on the general exemption and, in this case, does not comply with the right to be informed.

bottom of page