Safe Harbor 2.0: Political Agreement Reached – The EU-US Privacy Shield

Article by Kolvin Stone, Christian Schröder, James Drury-Smith, Paul Hansford, Emily Tabatabai, Aravind Swaminathan and Antony P. Kim

The European Commission has announced that it has reached a deal to replace the EU-US Safe Harbor framework that was declared invalid last year by the Court of Justice of the European Union ("ECJ"). Heralded as the EU-US Privacy Shield (and colloquially referred to as, "Safe Harbor 2.0"), the framework should provide companies with clearer direction on safe transatlantic data transfer.

Although it has been approved on both sides of the Atlantic by the Commission and the US Department of Commerce, organizations should remain cautious for the time being, as steps now need to be taken to formally implement it. The main features of the framework are as follows: