EU-US Privacy Shield: European Union and U.S. Reach Agreement in Principle for New Data Transfer Framework – But Uncertainty Remains
On February 2, 2016, the European Commission (EC) and the U.S. Department of Commerce (Commerce) announced that they had reached agreement on a new data transfer safe harbor arrangement for the transfer of personal data from Europe to the U.S. The new safe harbor pact, called the EU-US Privacy Shield, was negotiated in the wake of the EU Court of Justice’s (CJEU) decision in October 2015 invalidating the prior safe harbor for transfers of personal data to the U.S. However, the details of the EU-US Privacy Shield still must be formalized for it to go into effect, and it remains subject to the scrutiny of the official consortium of EU data protection authorities known as the Article 29 Working Party.1 The opinion of the Article 29 Working Party, which is expected in April of this year, likely will strongly influence whether or not the EU-US Privacy Shield will be formally approved and implemented by EU authorities.
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