The European Central Bank and Germany’s Bundesbank have begun an investigation into claims that Bloomberg journalists used the company’s $20,000 a year data terminals to spy on bank officials.
It follows similar moves by the US Treasury and US Federal Reserve following suggestions that the news organisation was able to track individual users of its terminals to obtain data on the frequency of use and what users they were contacting.
Goldman Sachs set alarm bells ringing after reporting that Bloomberg journalists had been keeping tabs on its staff.
Following the reports Bloomberg immediately moved to sever its reporters access to such information but the scandal is already reverberating around the financial world – much of which is heavily dependent on Bloomberg’s ubiquitous terminals.
Offering real-time information about share prices, currency and financial news the terminals also offer access to a ‘secure’ social network style service.
In a statement the ECB said: “Our experts are in close contact with Bloomberg. The ECB takes the protection of confidentiality in the usage of data products by ECB management and staff very seriously."
Bloomberg concede that such activity could have been going on for over a decade and has already apologised for the ‘inexcusable’ behaviour.