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U.S.-EU data pact overview:
- Who: The European Parliament adopted a nonbinding regulation arguing that a proposed U.S.-EU data pact needs improvement before implementation.
- Why: As currently written, the U.S.-EU data breach may not survive judicial review, according to European Parliament members.
- Where: The data pact affects the transfer of EU data to the United States.
European Parliament members say that a revamped U.S.-EU data transfer pact needs to be reworked so it will survive judicial review, Law360 reports.
On May 11, the European Parliament voted 306-27 to adopt a nonbinding resolution arguing that the European Commission should not grant the United States the adequacy decision needed to implement the pact. There were 231 abstentions to this vote.
European high court struck down previous U.S.-EU data pact frameworks
The European Union and the United States began working together on a new transatlantic data transfer pact after the European Court of Justice struck down the prior Privacy Shield agreement in 2020 over concerns that it failed to provide Europeans with adequate protection from having their data intercepted by U.S. intelligence agencies.
A previous data pact called Safe Harbor had previously been invalidated by the European Court of Justice in 2015.
European Parliament members found that the revised data pact was an improvement over its precursors, but expressed concern that it was unlikely to survive judicial review from the high court.
“This new proposal contains significant improvements, but unfortunately, we are not there yet,” said rapporteur Juan Fernando López Aguilar of Spain. He says there are “still missing elements on judicial independence, transparency, access to justice, and remedies.”
Aguilar says the European Commission should continue to negotiate with U.S. policymakers to “properly address these concerns.”
European Commission is expected to approve pact
The European Commission is expected to finalize an adequacy decision reached in December that concludes the new data transfer pact includes commitments from the United States that are sufficient to ensure adequate protection of personal data transferred from the European Union to the United States.
Once finalized, the adequacy decision would enable multinational companies to certify their compliance with privacy obligations set forth in the U.S.-EU data pact so that they can transfer EU data to the United States without implementing additional data protection measures.
The new pact framework also contains enhanced protections regarding U.S. intelligence agencies’ handling of EU residents’ personal data and government surveillance complaints.
In October, U.S. President Joe Biden issued an executive order approving these enhanced protections, including conditions requiring intelligence operations to be conducted “only in pursuit of defined national security objectives” and noting that privacy and civil liberties must be considered for all involved individuals.
Biden’s executive order also requires the implementation of a redress mechanism through which individuals in the EU can complain if they believe their personal information was illegally collected by intelligence authorities.
In March 2022, Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the new data pact at a press conference in Brussels.
What do you think about the U.S.-EU pact? Join the discussion in the comments!
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