EU-US Data Sharing Agreement: Is It a Done Deal?

upstart writes:

EU-US data sharing agreement: Is it a done deal?:

The thousands of companies waiting for a new US-EU data-transfer agreement to go into effect soon and ease the burdensome legal work necessary for cross-border data transfer shouldn't get their hopes up. US President Joe Biden's executive order to implement rules for the Trans-Atlantic Data Policy Framework agreed on earlier this year is a move in the right direction, but the new pact won't go into effect until next spring at the earliest, and even then it is bound to face legal challenges, say public policy and legal experts.

The executive order, signed by Biden on October 7, puts new restrictions on electronic surveillance by American intelligence agencies and gives Europeans new avenues to launch a complaint when they believe their personal information has been used unlawfully by US intelligence agencies.

The move comes two years after the European Court of Justice shut down the previous EU-US data sharing agreement known as Privacy Shield in 2020 on grounds that the US doesn't provide adequate protection for personal data, particularly in relation to state surveillance.

The new Trans-Atlantic Data Policy Framework is meant to improve US privacy safeguards, replace Privacy Shield, and eventually pass Court of Justice scrutiny when expected legal challenges are lodged. However, despite both the Biden Administration and the European Commission releasing statements endorsing the newly proposed data pact, it's far from a done deal, according to Jonathan Armstrong, a compliance and technology lawyer at UK-based compliance specialists Cordery.

"Both the White House and the European Commission might be saying that they are confident, but we've been down this road before, with both sides saying that Privacy Shield would stand up to judicial scrutiny. It didn't," Armstrong said.

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