The European Parliament has voted to halt the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP), an agreement to share data on financial transactions in the Continent with the US – after documents leaked by Edward Snowden showed the NSA was hacking the system anyway.

"Parliament stresses that any data-sharing agreement with the US must be based on a consistent legal data protection framework, offering legally-binding standards on purpose limitation, data minimisation, information, access, correction, erasure and redress," the resolution reads.

The TFTP was set up in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks to give US investigators access to data from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT). According to prolific whistleblower Snowden, Uncle Sam's spies pwned the SWIFT system, as well as those of other financial providers including Visa, and is busy slurping up credit card records and other information on selected targets.

In the wake of these allegations, the parliament voted by 280 to 254 (with 30 abstentions) to suspend the TFTP until a "full on-site technical investigation" of the hacking claims has been carried out by Europol's Cybercrime Centre.