In June 2006, the New York Times reported that counterterrorism officials had gained access to financial records from a vast international database of banking transactions involving Americans and others in the United States. In response to concerns about privacy issues, Levey said that the Terrorist Financing Tracking Program (TFTP) "has provided us with a unique and powerful window into the operations of terrorist networks and is, without doubt, a legal and proper use of our authorities." Since the creation of the TFTP, the United States and European Union (EU) have entered into a long-standing and comprehensive information sharing agreement to thwart the financing of terrorism around the world and gain timely, accurate, and reliable information about activities associated with suspected acts of terrorist planning and financing. A 2019 EU evaluation of the TFTP found that “over 70,000 leads were generated, some of which brought forward investigations into terrorist attacks on EU territory, such as those in Stockholm, Barcelona, and Turku. The number of leads increased considerably compared to almost 9,000 in the previous reporting period (1 March 2014 to 31 December 2015).” In November 2020, the Wall Street Journal reported that EU member countries widely use the TFTP to monitor global financial ties to terrorism and thwart terrorist actors.
