Criticism does not go away
New data protection agreement between the EU and the USA in force
7/11/2023 3:13 am
After two data protection agreements overturned by the ECJ, the third attempt by the USA and the EU comes into force. Both sides praise the arrangement. But data protectionists are still skeptical – and are again announcing legal action.
Three years after the “Privacy Shield” agreement, a new data protection agreement between the EU and the USA has come into force. The US now guarantees an adequate level of protection for personal data transferred from the EU to companies in America EU Commission in Brussels with The new regulation introduces binding guarantees to address the concerns previously expressed by the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
The ECJ overturned the “Privacy Shield” for the transmission of data from Europe across the Atlantic in July 2020 on the grounds that the level of data protection in the USA does not correspond to EU standards. Above all, the judges criticized the extensive access possibilities of US secret services to data of Europeans. The ECJ ruling created great legal uncertainty for companies when it came to data transfer between the USA and the EU.
The “Privacy Shield” was created in 2016 after the previous “Safe Harbor” regulation had been overturned by the ECJ. In both cases, the Austrian lawyer Max Schrems complained. Whose Data protection organization Noyb now complained that the new agreement was largely a copy of the failed “Privacy Shield”. “We already have various legal options in the pipeline, although we’re fed up with this legal ping-pong.”
What does “proportionally” mean?
In the future, US secret services may only access the data if it is necessary and proportionate, according to the EU Commission. In addition, a court to review data protection is to be set up. “The new EU-US data protection framework will ensure secure data flows for Europeans and create legal certainty for companies on both sides of the Atlantic,” said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. According to the EU Commission, the new legal framework should be reviewed regularly.
The US government welcomed the new agreement. The announcement represents “the culmination of years of close cooperation” between the US and the EU, said US President Joe Biden. “The decision reflects our shared commitment to strong privacy and will bring greater economic opportunity to our countries and businesses on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Schrems criticized the fact that the USA gave the word “proportionate” a different meaning than the ECJ. In addition, violations of the privacy of non-US citizens do not pose a problem for the USA. In his opinion, the prescribed legal remedies are also not in line with EU law.
criticism from MEPs
The president of the digital industry association Bitkom, Ralf Wintergerst, praised the fact that a “three-year stalemate is now coming to an end”. This basically gave companies legal certainty again, and small and medium-sized companies in particular benefited from this because individual assessments were no longer necessary. “But it is also certain that the new regulation that has now been found will be reviewed again by the courts.”
There was sharp criticism from politics: “Von der Leyen doesn’t really care about EU law. She knows that the new agreement will fail before the ECJ,” criticized MEP Moritz Körner from the FDP. The financial costs would then have to be paid for the third time by European citizens and companies. The social democratic S&D group in the European Parliament criticized on twitterthat the agreement makes personal data vulnerable to mass surveillance. That is not a real reform.