Passage Of The U.S. Redress Act Raises Confidence In Privacy Protection For Transatlantic Data Flows

Executive Summary

The U.S. Judicial Redress Act has been signed into law by President Obama. The move marks an important step in data transfer relations between the EU and the United States, gives the green light to the EU-U.S. law enforcement data Umbrella Agreement and helps to underpin the Privacy Shield.

With all the talk of defunct "harbors", "umbrellas" and "shields" these days, one might imagine EU-U.S. data exchanges to be more of an unruly deluge than an essential channel for trans-atlantic trade. What is clear, however, is that President Obama's signing of the U.S. Judicial Redress Act ("JRA") into law on 24 February will have a significant impact on future data-sharing arrangements between the EU and the United States, a topic which has dominated privacy headlines over the past months.