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2023-07-11 09:23:53
By Foo Yun Chee
July 10, 20239:00 PM GMT+2Updated 16 hours ago
BRUSSELS, July 10 (Reuters) - The European Commission announced a new data
transfer pact with the United States on Monday, seeking to end the legal
uncertainty plaguing thousands of companies that transfer personal data across
the Atlantic.
The move was immediately criticised by non-profit group noyb, led by privacy
activist Max Schrems, which said it would challenge the agreement.
The commission and the United States had been struggling to reach a new
agreement after Europe's top court annulled two previous pacts that underpinned
the transfer of personal data across the Atlantic for services ranging from
cloud infrastructure to payroll and banking.
The commission, the EU's executive arm, said measures taken by the United
States ensured an adequate level of protection for Europeans' personal data
transferred across the Atlantic for commercial use.
It said new binding safeguards, such as limiting U.S. intelligence services'
access to EU data to what is "necessary and proportionate" and the
establishment of a Data Protection Review Court for Europeans, address the
concerns raised by Europe's top court.
U.S. President Joe Biden welcomed the data transfer pact and said it reflected
a "joint commitment to strong data privacy protections."
EU justice chief Didier Reynders said he was confident of fending off any legal
challenge.
"The principles of the data privacy framework are solid, and I am convinced
that we have made significant progress which meets the requirements of the
European Court of Justice case law," he told a news conference. "I am very
confident of fighting, defending the new data agreement."
But Schrems said the latest revision was inadequate.
"Just announcing that something is 'new,' 'robust' or 'effective' does not cut
it before the Court of Justice. We would need changes in U.S. surveillance law
to make this work," he said in a statement.
"We have various options for a challenge already in the drawer, although we are
sick and tired of this legal ping-pong. We currently expect this to be back at
the Court of Justice by the beginning of next year," Schrems added.
Lobbying group DigitalEurope, whose members include Airbus (AIR.PA), Amazon
(AMZN.O), Apple (AAPL.O), Ericsson (ERICb.ST), Nokia (NOKIA.HE), Philips
(PHG.AS) and Samsung (005930.KS), welcomed the deal.
"Data flows underpin the EU's annual 1 trillion euros of service exports to the
United States, and this decision will give companies more confidence to conduct
business and help our economies to grow," its director-general, Cecilia
Bonefeld-Dahl, said.
Earlier this year, the EU's privacy watchdog, the European Data Protection
Board, said the latest data agreement still fell short and urged the commission
to do more to protect Europeans' privacy rights.
Europe's top court scuppered the previous two deals after challenges by Schrems
because of concerns about U.S. intelligence agencies' accessing European
citizens' private data.
Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Additional reporting by Kanishka Singh in
Washington; Editing by Philip Blenkinsop, Christina Fincher and Leslie Adler
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DigitalEurope