President Biden Enacts New Executive Order On EU-US Data Flow Agreement; EU Adequacy Decision Forthcoming

The Executive Order hopes to address what had been shortcomings in the previous Safe Harbor and Privacy Shield programs that were struck down by EU courts in 2015 and 2020 respectively.

On October 7, 2022, President Biden enacted the Executive Order On Enhancing Safeguards for United States Signals Intelligence Activities. The Executive Order seeks to address the biggest concern that EU courts have cited in striking down the previous EU-US data flow agreements: the inability of individual data subjects to exercise their rights under EU law over US government collection of their personal information.

The Executive Order comes over six months after the new EU-US data transfer agreement was announced in March 2022 (the "Data Transfer Agreement"). The Data Transfer Agreement is aimed at allowing for the simpler and lawful transfer of EU personal data to locations within the US. Once in place, the new Data Transfer Agreement will provide US-based entities with