At Long Last, US-EU Privacy Shield Adopted By EU Member States

Key takeaways:

• The Privacy Shield will now go into effect.
• The preliminary start date for companies to be certified under the Privacy Shield is August 1, 2016.
• Expect more challenges to the Privacy Shield before all is said and done.

The Details:

Following the invalidation of the US-EU Safe Harbor by the European Court of Justice in the Schrems case, the European Commission negotiated with the US a new scheme called the Privacy Shield. The first draft was issued in February and submitted to the Article 29 Working Party, which gave its opinion on April 13, 2016. The EU data protection Supervisor then issued his opinion on May 30, 2016. In view of the objections raised, the Commission resumed its work with the US authorities to improve the scheme. The final draft was submitted to the Article 31 Committee composed of representatives of all Member States and was approved by that Committee on July 8. On July 12, the Commission officially adopted the Adequacy