Executive Order One Step Closer To EU-US Data Transfers

President Biden signed an Executive Order on Enhancing Safeguards for United States Signals Intelligence on Oct. 7, 2022, which aims to re-establish an EU-U.S. data transfer framework. The new data privacy framework (the "Framework") will govern how the U.S. intelligence community collects data from citizens of a "qualifying state," namely the EU and U.K., and establishes a redress mechanism for privacy violations.

The Executive Order follows negotiations between the United States and the EU after the Court of Justice of European Union ("CJEU") struck down the previous framework—The Privacy Shield—in a 2020 decision commonly known as Schrems II. The Privacy Shield was invalidated by the CJEU in light of the practices of the U.S. intelligence community and EU residents not receiving substantially similar rights and remedies in the United States as they would in the EU.