Shaun Cunninghame – An investigative documentary by Aljazeera TV Network described Thomson Reuters World-Check as misleading and deliberately Islamophobic. The renowned documentary exposed how the Thomson Reuters World-Check London based company destroyed the lives of innocent civilians who were banned from travel and had their bank accounts closed.
The 52-mintue long documentary, “The Hidden is More Immense” revealed how the World-Check product – part of Thomson Reuters Company – has sourced a database of millions of names of Journalists, politics, political activists and member of the public and labelled them as “Terrorists”, “Convicted Terrorists” or involved in financial crimes, money laundering and terrorism. It also added that many charities, NGOs and even mosques have had their bank accounts closed due to being falsely labelled as “terrorists”
The documentary presented by investigative Journalist Tamer Misshal traced how World-Check built its database which turned to be on unreliable and inaccurate sources as fake blogs, unknown websites (with no ownership declared). Additionally, the documentary revealed that many of the sources used are often sent by repressive governments in the Middle East such as Israel, Egypt, United Arab Emirates and other countries. In some cases, some of sources are published by intelligence agencies and semi government agencies.
The documentary interviewed two Law offices in London and Brussels which confirmed that World-Check service is relying on “basic search on google” to source information against individuals.
Thomson Reuters World-Check has already lost several lawsuits in London and expected to concede in some ongoing cases.
Meanwhile, World-Check claims to help protect businesses from financial crime and “reduce risk by fulfilling your KYC due diligence screening obligations with accurate and structured information. World-Check Risk Intelligence is used and trusted by the worlds biggest companies” It also state on its website that it is an Intelligence database which delivers accurate and reliable information to help entities such as banks, financial and other institutions make informed decisions.
It also claims to have “hundreds of specialist researchers and analysts across the globe, adhering to the most stringent research guidelines as they collate information from reliable and reputable sources – such as watch lists, government records, and media searches.”
Contrary to the literature and objective of World-Check the Aljazeera Documentary raises the alarm of integrity and ethics on how this service operates. For example, journalists interviewed in the documentary argued clearly that the World-Check staff dont spend more than two minutes on reviewing or updating profiles of names included.
Pathetic, this contradiction has been apparent in 2017 where World Check confessed that its staff were incompetent and disqualified as elaborated by Tom Keatinge who argued, “According to the Particulars of Claim between Finsbury Park Mosque and World-Check owner Thomson Reuters, the information provided by World-Check to banks consists of “continually updated intelligence” providing an “early warning system for hidden risk”. Yet, it is claimed, the profile reports are compiled by “unqualified staff on the basis of open source data, in particular by means of Google searches”. Furthermore, “the profile reports are not subject to independent checks” and those that are the subject of these compiled profiles are not given an opportunity to check or correct these reports.”
Peter Oborne has accused World-Check earlier of abusing the definition and concept of terrorism and described the service as “inflammatory and toxic”. Oborne who extensively wrote on World-Check revealed that, “Banks are unfairly targeting Muslims. Now ministers must end this injustice”
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