Part 5 – Miscellaneous Disclosures to prevent, detect, or investigate economic crime etc Section 188: Direct disclosures of information: restrictions on civil liability
This section disapplies any duty of confidence owed by a business to its customer, or any civil liability relating to a disclosure about that customer, where the business making the disclosure knows the identity of the recipient (a "direct disclosure") and certain conditions are satisfied. An example is where a bank identifies a transaction that it is part of as irregular and wants further information from the other party involved in the transaction on, for instance, the identity of the payer or the source of funds.
	Section 188(1) sets out the conditions where a person ‘A’ making a direct disclosure to another person ‘B’ does not breach confidentiality obligations A may owe and is protected from civil liability. These conditions are:
That A is carrying on a business of a kind set out in section 188(3).
That B is also a business to which section 188(3) applies.
That the person whose data is being shared is a customer or former customer of A.
That either the "request condition" or "warning condition" is met (these are defined by section 188(4) and (5)).
That A is satisfied that the disclosure will or may assist B in carrying out relevant actions of B. "Relevant action" is defined at section 191 and includes:
determining whether it is appropriate to carry out customer due diligence (CDD) or other similar measures;
identity verification; and
determining whether it is appropriate to decline or restrict services to a customer for the purposes of preventing or detecting economic crime.
That the disclosure is not a privileged disclosure as defined by section 190.
	Section 188(2) sets out the protections that are applied by the sections: that the disclosure does not- (a) give rise to a breach of any obligation of confidence owed by A, or (b) give rise to any civil liability, on the part of A, to the person to whom the disclosed information relates
	Section 188(3) sets out the sectors that this section applies to. This covers businesses in the AML regulated sector (as defined in Part 1 of Schedule 9 to POCA) or those prescribed in regulations made by the Secretary of State.
	Section 188(4) sets out one of the conditions that must be met in order to satisfy limb (d) of the test above. This, the request condition, is designed to facilitate sharing where B has made a request to A for disclosure of information.
	Section 188(5) creates the alternative condition that may be relied on to satisfy limb (d) as referenced above. This, the warning condition, is designed to facilitate sharing in cases where A wishes, due to concerns about risks of economic crime, to warn B about a customer. The condition for A providing such a warning is that A must have taken safeguarding action against their customer or would have taken such action in the case of a former customer.
	Section 188(6) defines what a safeguarding action consists of.
	Section 188(7) ensures that should B, upon receipt of a disclosure under subsection (1), use the disclosed information for the purposes of any of B’s relevant actions (as defined in section 191), B does not breach any obligation of confidence B may owe.
	Section 188(8) ensures that a person carrying on a business to which section 188(2) applies does not breach any duty of confidentiality owed or make themselves civilly liable when disclosing information to another person for the purpose of making a disclosure request, provided it is reasonably believed that the person to whom the disclosure is made is carrying on business to which section 188(2) applies and has information that may assist the requestor in conducting their relevant actions.
	Section 188(9) sets out the protections that apply to section 188(8).
	Section 188(11) makes clear that the disclosure of information must still be compliant with data protection legislation, the UK GDPR, and the Data Protection Act 2018, and that the protection from civil liability offered by these sections do not include those that arise under these acts.