Political Agreement Reached on US-EU Safe Harbor; Details "Hazy"

By Cynthia J. Larose

According to press reports, European Union and U.S. negotiators in Brussels finalized what is being called a "political agreement" on a new Safe Harbor transatlantic data transfer agreement. European Union justice commissioner Vera Jourová will present the agreement to the European Commission's 28 commissioners today.

The "replacement" is a draft and is reportedly not set out in final detailed language, and includes provisions that worry Jan Philipp Albrecht, the German Green lawmaker who steered the new EU data protection regulation through the European Parliament, told Bloomberg News that the so-called "EU-US Privacy Shield" includes provisions that worry him and it would not likely withstand further ECJ scrutiny.   Albrecht tweeted:  "This is just a joke."

We are continuing to follow this and will analyze the "Privacy Shield" proposal as soon as it is available.

The Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), BSA | The Software Alliance and DIGITALEUROPE—which represent technology industry groups—praised the movement towards an agreement. “Today’s economy is online and it runs on data, and so the biggest winners here are the EU and U.S. economies,” ITI President and Chief Executive Officer Dean Garfield said today in a statement.

More reading:

New York Times (subscription may be required)

Video Clips of announcement from European Commission

Politico.eu

 

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Cynthia J. Larose

Member / Chair, Privacy & Cybersecurity Practice

Cynthia J. Larose is Chair of the firm's Privacy & Cybersecurity Practice, a Certified Information Privacy Professional-US (CIPP-US), and a Certified Information Privacy Professional-Europe (CIPP-E). She works with clients in various industries to develop comprehensive information security programs on the front end, and provides timely counsel when it becomes necessary to respond to a data breach.