Privacy Shield: over 200 active participants after one month and a half

Posted on by Federica Romanelli
As of mid September 2016, 203 companies were active under the EU-US Privacy Shield, according to the US Department of Commerce official website. The list does not include large multinationals apart from Microsoft and Salesforce. The Privacy Shield Framework became effective on August 1, 2016, replacing the Safe Harbor which was declared invalid on October 2015. After 1 year, the Safe Harbour had about 129 US based organizations that self-certified their adherence to the Safe Harbor Principles. They Read more [...]

U.S. government’s amicus curiae in Irish High Court’s proceeding Europe v Facebook

Posted on by Federica Romanelli
On June 13, 2016, Schrem’s website “Europe v Facebook”(website collecting information regarding class actions against Facebook) released a press update according to which the United States government asked the Irish High Court to join as amicus curiae in the case between Max Schrems and Facebook. “The US government likely wants to defend its surveillance laws before the European Courts and highlighted the significance of the case for the United States before the High Court.” According Read more [...]

WP29’s comments on the EU Commission’s Privacy Shield Decision: again not an endorsement

Posted on by Federica Romanelli
On July 26, 2016, the Article 29 Working Party (WP29) released a statement on the decision of the European Commission on the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield. The statement refers to the Privacy Shield approved by the European Commission on July 12, 2016 (see here) and addresses the changes brought to the text of the document after the last rounds of negotiations. Particularly, the WP29 highlighted that a number of the concerns the group previously highlighted (see here and here) remain. The WP29’s Read more [...]

Privacy Shield officially adopted by the EU Commission … but American organizations “targeting Europe” might want to consider whether GDPR compliance would make more sense

Posted on by Federica Romanelli
On July 12, 2016, the European Commission officially approved the Privacy Shield, issuing the decision of adequacy (“Decision”). The Privacy Shield is supposed to provide a safe mechanism to transfer personal data from the EU to the US for those organizations that comply with the framework.  Compared to the Safe Harbor (which the Privacy Shield substitutes) the Privacy Shield contains stronger obligations on U.S. companies, clearer safeguards for data subjects, transparency on U.S. government’s Read more [...]

Privacy Shield not robust enough to withstand ECJ’s future legal scrutiny, European Data Protection Supervisor opines

Posted on by Federica Romanelli
On May 30, 2016, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) – whose mission is to advise the EU institutions on the data protection implications of their policies — published Opinion 4/2016 on the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield draft adequacy decision. According to the press release the Privacy Shield as it stands is not robust enough to withstand future legal scrutiny before the Court. Significant improvements are needed should the European Commission wish to adopt an adequacy decision, to Read more [...]