The Effect Of The Safe Harbour Ruling In Switzerland

On 6 October 2015, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued its much-anticipated judgment in Schrems v Data Protection Commissioner, Case C-362/14 (Safe Harbour Ruling). The case was brought after it had been revealed by Edward Snowden that personal data, which was transferred by companies like Facebook from the EU to the US under the so-called Safe Harbour Framework, had been accessed by the US National Security Agency under the PRISM program. In light of these revelations, the ECJ ruled that the Safe Harbour Framework, which has served trade between the EU and the US for over 15 years, was no longer valid. In 2008, Switzerland and the US concluded a separate Safe Harbour Framework (Swiss Safe Harbour Framework), which contains very similar provisions, but has a wider scope of application encompassing not only data relating to natural persons but also to legal entities. The Safe Harbour Ruling has an impact on Swiss companies that make use of the framework in order