The Right To Financial Privacy Act

The Right to Financial Privacy Act (RFPA) of 1978 protects the confidentiality of personal financial records by creating a statutory Fourth Amendment protection for bank records. The Act was essentially a reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court's 1976 ruling in United States v. Miller, where the Court found that bank customers had no legal right to privacy in financial information held by financial institutions. (Generally, the RFPA requires that federal government agencies provide individuals with a notice and an opportunity to object before a bank or other specified institution can disclose personal financial information to a federal government agency, often for law enforcement purposes. The RFPA was amended due to the USA Patriot Act of 2001: Section 358 of the U.S. Patriot Act amended the RFPA to permit the disclosure of financial information to any intelligence or counter-intelligence agency in any investigation related to international terrorism.