The European Commission has today published its Report on the first annual review of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield (the Report is accompanied with a Staff Working Document, Infographic, and Q&A). The Commission concludes that Privacy Shield continues to ensure an adequate level of protection for personal data transferred from the EU to Privacy Shield-certified companies … Continue Reading
By Joseph Jones and Ruth Scoles Mitchell On October 3, 2017, the Irish High Court referred Data Protection Commissioner v Facebook Ireland Limited [2016 No. 4809 P.] to the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”). The case, commonly referred to as Schrems II, is based on a complaint by Max Schrems concerning the transfer … Continue Reading
The first annual review of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield (“Privacy Shield”) is scheduled to occur in September 2017 in Washington, D.C. The first review is particularly important for the nascent framework, as regulators in both the U.S. and the EU are expected to closely scrutinize the operation of the first year of the Privacy Shield, … Continue Reading
Nearly 2,000 organizations are now listed as self-certified to the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield on the Department of Commerce’s (“Commerce”) Privacy Shield website. Given current developments on both sides of the Atlantic, there are likely to be significant Privacy Shield developments in the coming months. EU Justice Commissioner Věra Jourová recently concluded her visit to the … Continue Reading
When China’s new Cybersecurity Law takes effect on June 1, 2017, China will become another important jurisdiction to watch in the international data transfer space. Before the new Cybersecurity Law officially was promulgated on November 7, 2016, cross-border data transfer of data from China was largely unregulated by the government. While many Chinese laws and … Continue Reading
On September 16, 2016, Digital Rights Ireland (“DRI”), a digital rights advocacy group, lodged an action with the EU General Court for annulment of the European Commission’s Decision on the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield arrangement. While the existence of the application has only recently become public knowledge, it was widely-expected that the Privacy Shield would face … Continue Reading
This morning (May 26, 2016) the European Parliament (“EP”) approved a non-binding resolution on the proposed EU – U.S. Privacy Shield (see resolution here and press release here). The resolution is far more positive in relation to the Privacy Shield than some of the proposals floated by some political groups earlier this week (see, for instance, the resolution proposed … Continue Reading
By Helena Marttila-Bridge and Monika Kuschewsky Today, the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party (“Working Party”), a group consisting of representatives from the European data protection authorities, the European Data Protection Supervisor, and the European Commission, published its opinion on the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield draft adequacy decision (“Opinion”) (see here). The Opinion is accompanied by … Continue Reading
By Monika Kuschewsky and Vera Coughlan Today, the European Commission published the text of the new EU-U.S. Privacy Shield (see the Commission’s press release here), which consists of: a draft adequacy decision; the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework Principles issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce; and the official representations and commitments contained in separate letters … Continue Reading
On February 3rd, the Article 29 Working Party, representing Europe’s data protection authorities, published its reaction to the announcement of a new “Privacy Shield” political agreement between the European Commission and the U.S. Government. The Privacy Shield agreement, announced on February 2nd (and further described in our blog post here), is intended to replace the … Continue Reading
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (see the latest text here), which was approved at the political level last week, heralds a new era of data protection in the EU and beyond. The GDPR imposes numerous new obligations on companies both within and outside the EU, strengthens the rights of individuals and foresees stiff penalties … Continue Reading
The text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (“TPP”) agreement was released to the public for the first time today. The TPP has yet to be ratified by the twelve Pacific Rim nations that negotiated the agreement, including the United States, where it has encountered opposition in Congress. The nations that participated in the negotiations for the … Continue Reading
Today, the German supervisory authorities (“German DPAs”) responsible for data protection at federal and state (Länder) level published a position paper on the EU-U.S. Safe Harbor (available in German – see here). This 14-point position paper follows a meeting that these authorities held last week. Key points include: following the Safe Harbor judgment of the … Continue Reading
By Jetty Tielemans, Mark Young and Joseph Jones This morning (September 23, 2015), EU Advocate General (“AG”) Bot issued an Opinion in Case C-362/14 Maximilian Schrems v Data Protection Commissioner (see our earlier post on the hearing here). The AG Opinion has gone further than expected, covering not just the power of national data protection … Continue Reading
By Tom Jackson On November 26, 2014, the Article 29 Working Party adopted a working document setting out a cooperation procedure for issuing common opinions on contractual clauses considered as compliant with the EC Model Clauses (the “Working Document”). The Working Document sets out the framework for a procedure designed to streamline the process of … Continue Reading
By Dan Cooper & Maria-Martina Yalamova On June 6, 2014, the Justice and Home Affairs Council of the European Union (the “Council”), representing individual EU Member States, reached a common position on certain important aspects of the draft European Data Protection Regulation (the “Regulation”). Specifically, the Council reached an agreement on rules governing transfers of … Continue Reading
