The EU-US data privacy shield : can this framework be considered as the most practical solution for ensuring safe and lawful cross-border data transfers?

Abstract

The EU has always afforded a high level of protection to the personal data of its citizens, mainly since it plays an essential role in anyone’s life. Varying cultural norms and social expectations have created varying privacy standards in both the EU and the US. In the EU, citizens receive broad privacy protection, and all enjoy the same data protection rules, the same way that every company must comply with them. In the US, as will be seen throughout this term paper, the level of protection offered to data transferred there, is not equivalent to that of the EU.

Therefore, this is the reason why the EU has after negotiations with the US, first drawn up the Safe Harbour agreement, which was a novel model and for fifteen years served to regulate cross-border data transfers between the EU and the US. However, following a CJEU Preliminary Ruling, this agreement was invalidated, and after urgent discussions were held, the Privacy Shield Framework was decided upon.

This Framework contains general principles that the US companies and public entites must adhere to in order to protect EU citizen’s data in the best possible manner, which on par with that of the EU. In this term paper, the different levels of safe and lawful cross-border transfers between the EU and the US will be discussed, first starting off from the Safe Harbour framework, up to the Data Privacy Shield and even beyond.

The term paper analyses both the good and the bad of the Privacy Shield, the improvements that were made over the Safe Harbour, and whether it could potentially be the best solution for such transatlantic transfers of data.