Third Time's A Charm For EU-US Data Privacy Framework

Following President Biden's Oct. 7, 2022 Executive Order on Enhancing Safeguards for United States Signals Intelligence, the European Commission concluded on Dec. 13, 2022 in a draft adequacy decision that the data privacy framework under the executive order ensures an adequate level of protection for personal data transferred from the European Union to the United States.

The adequacy decision is a tool under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to determine whether a non-EU country has an essentially equivalent level of data protection to that within the EU. A finding of adequacy enables data to flow freely from the EU to a non-EU country without additional safeguards. The newly released draft adequacy decision for the new EU-U.S. Privacy Framework is not yet adopted, and it is waiting for approval from the European Data Protection Board and a committee made of representatives of EU Member States.