How The Cayman Islands Updated Its Confidentiality Law

Not so long ago, it used to be considered a good thing if a person's private affairs were kept confidential. The right to privacy was enshrined in conventions and bills of rights in civilised countries.

It still is, of course, but in recent years it has increasingly been overridden and the focus has been on transparency, openness and access to information. To the point where in the Cayman Islands the existence of a law from the 1970s aimed at preserving confidentiality had become a stick for offshore-bashers and an awkward anachronism, no longer consistent with Cayman's position at the forefront of the global move towards transparency, cooperation, mutual assistance and information-sharing with other countries.