Being (Data) Adequate
Striking down the EU-US Privacy Shield and what it means. The MadHATTERs Editorial, 22 July 2020
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America’s data protections just don’t cut it anymore for Europe. So the EU’s Court of Justice has struck down the EU-US Privacy Shield, described as one of the ‘most trusted ways to transfer data across the Atlantic’ (£). According to the court’s judges, American government surveillance collects more data than the GPDR allows, and European citizens’ personal data may not be as well protected in the US as it is in Europe. What’s not helping: the US still doesn’t have a federal data privacy law in place.
Europe’s done this before; back in 2015 it axed a similar transatlantic data transfer agreement called Safe Harbour. But Privacy Shield’s demise doesn’t mean the end of data flows between American and European companies. They’ll continue under individual standard contractual clauses between businesses, although this’ll involve more administrative work and costs.
The UK has a whole lot more at stake. For UK-EU data to continue flowing freely post-Brexit, the UK needs an EU adequacy decision recognising it as a safe haven for data transfers. But it may be seen as a backdoor for unprotected data transfers to the US — last year the two countries signed a bilateral data access agreement to help their law enforcement agencies fight crime better. Also, Europe’s criticism of the UK’s Snoopers’ Charter is not a good sign: it was US surveillance data collection that killed the Privacy Shield.
Certainly feels like that data sovereignty noose — which I discussed earlier this year — is tightening further. Not great for a global digital economy that relies on smooth data flows.
MadHATTERs is a weekly newsletter covering technology, personal data, and the Internet. Its perspective championing decentralised personal data is led by Dataswift with the Hub of All Things (HAT) technology. If you like what you read, subscribe to receive MadHATTERs in your inbox. Find out more about the HAT at www.hubofallthings.com
