EU And U.S. Release Terms Of Privacy Shield

The European Commission ("EC") and U.S. Department of Commerce ("DOC") recently released the full text of the EU–U.S. Privacy Shield framework. This release follows the February 2, 2016, announcement that EU and U.S. officials had reached an agreement to replace the recently invalidated Safe Harbor program (the "Safe Harbor") with a more robust and comprehensive transatlantic data transfer scheme.¹

The details of the Privacy Shield were released as part of a 128-page package that includes an enumeration of the Privacy Shield Principles (the "Privacy Principles"), the terms of the new "Arbitral Model" that will be used to address certain unresolved data protection claims, and letters from various U.S. regulators.² The EC also released a draft "adequacy decision" concluding that the Privacy Shield ensures an adequate level of protection for personal data transferred under its ambit and meets the standards of Directive 95/46/EC (the "EU Directive").³ Although the draft