The New EU-US Privacy Shield: a New Deal on Personal Data Transfers
On February 2, two days after the deadline set by Europe for agreement on a new Safe Harbor governing US access to the personal data of European citizens, US and EU negotiators announced that they had agreed upon a framework for a new data sharing agreement, which will be called the EU-US Privacy Shield, to replace the Safe Harbor agreement struck down by the European Court of Justice on October 6, 2015.
US companies adhering to the EU-US Privacy Shield, which has yet to be formally adopted by both the EU Commission and the US Department of Commerce, will be able to receive, store and use personal data from Europe according to its terms.
The key elements of the EU-US Privacy Shield, which aims to assure that US protections of European personal data will be essentially equivalent to that provided in Europe, will be: