U.S. Senators Responding To CJEU Schrems II – Revisiting The Need For Privacy Reform

On 09.12.2020,¹ the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation conducted a hearing, discussing the need for a comprehensive federal U.S. privacy legislation as well as the future of trans-Atlantic data flows in light of the EU/US Privacy Shield invalidation by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on 16.07.2020 (case C-311/18, Schrems II).² Discussions centred on policy considerations that led the CJEU to conclude that the then existing framework had failed to provide equivalent protection standards as required under EU law. In addition, the hearing featured expert submissions on the practical steps to pursue for purposes of establishing a successor data transfer framework.