US, EU Reach Preliminary Deal on Data Privacy

The U.S. and the European Union reached a preliminary deal to allow data about Europeans to be stored on U.S. soil, heading off a growing threat to thousands of companies' trans-Atlantic operations. From a report: The deal, announced Friday by President Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, could if concluded resolve one of the thorniest outstanding issues between the two economic giants. It also assuages concerns of companies including Meta and Alphabet's Google that were facing mounting legal challenges to data transfers that underpin some of their operations in Europe. An earlier deal regulating trans-Atlantic data flows was deemed illegal by the EU's top court in 2020. That ruling was the second time since 2015 that the EU's Court of Justice had deemed U.S. safeguards on Europeans' data to be insufficient. The court said the U.S. didn't provide EU citizens effective means to challenge U.S. government surveillance of their data. Mr. Biden and Ms. von der Leyen didn't provide details of how the new agreement would work and withstand legal challenges. At issue in the talks has been whether the U.S. could convince the EU -- and its top court -- with new administrative appeals mechanisms for Europeans, but without a change to U.S. law, which would require approval by Congress, people briefed on the talks have said in recent months. Officials and observers on both sides of the Atlantic expect any new agreement to be challenged in court again, raising uncertainty about how long Friday's deal will last.

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