The European Union and the United States reached a final agreement on Monday on the exchange of data from Europeans. This makes it possible to transfer personal data from the EU back to the US.

After years of negotiations, European Commission President Ursula van der Leyen today signed a new privacy agreement with the United States. declared. The new deals will allow thousands of companies to send data to the US without fear of breaching EU privacy law.

Among other things, new safeguards will be introduced to prevent government access to data. According to von der Leyen, the US has made “unprecedented commitments”. He calls these agreements ‘an important step in giving citizens confidence that their data is secure’. For example, US companies must delete personal data if it is no longer necessary for the purpose for which it was collected. If data is shared with third parties, they must guarantee equally good privacy protection.

A new case will proceed

In 2020, the European Court of Justice banned the so-called Privacy Shield from 2016 because it would provide too weak a privacy protection against US security services. The case was initiated by Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems of the Noyb organization. He say To legally challenge the new contracts again.

According to Schrems, the New Deal is ‘old wine in new bottles’. “The latest agreement is not based on substantive changes, but on political expediency.” Changes to US surveillance laws are enough, he says. “And no.” The activist has several options to prepare for a lawsuit. “We expect it to go to court early next year. The court may suspend the new contract.”

Intelligence Services

According to Brussels, “new binding safeguards” have been agreed to address the EU court’s concerns, such as limiting US intelligence services’ access to EU data “to the extent necessary and proportionate”.

There will also be a special court, the Data Protection Review Tribunal (DPRC). “For example, if the DPRC determines that the data was collected in violation of the new safeguards, it may order the deletion of the data.”

Mega Fine

In May, Facebook parent company Meta was fined 1.2 billion euros for sending data from European users to the United States. The EU watchdog immediately ordered Meta to stop sending data about European Facebook users to the US. The company must delete the data already sent within six months. That is no longer required under the new agreement.

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