An agreement to ensure that data from Meta, Google and other companies’ scores can continue to flow between the United States and the European Union was completed on Monday, after the transfer of personal information. Digital multiplication between the two jurisdictions is suspected because of privacy concerns.
The decision adopted by the European Commission is the final step in a years-long process and resolution – at least for now – of the dispute over the ability of US intelligence agencies to access data on residents of the European Union. The debate raised concerns about US national security over European privacy.
The agreement, known as the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, gives Europeans the ability to object when they believe their personal information has been improperly collected by US intelligence agencies. An independent review body consisting of American judges, known as the Data Protection Review Court, will be established to hear such appeals.
Didier Reynders, the European commissioner who helped negotiate the deal with the US attorney general, Merrick B. Garland, and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, called it a “strong solution”. The agreement, he said, sets out more clearly when intelligence agencies can retrieve personal information about people in the European Union and outlines how Europeans can appeal that collection.
“It was a real change,” Reynders said in an interview. “Protection is going with the data.”
President Biden issued a operating command laid the groundwork for the October agreement, which required U.S. intelligence officials to add additional protections to the collection of digital information, including making them commensurate with the security risks. national security.
The transatlantic agreement is a priority for the world’s largest technology companies and thousands of other multinationals that rely on the free flow of data. This agreement replaces an agreement known as the Privacy Shield, which the highest court of the European Union invalidated in 2020 because it did not include sufficient privacy protections.
The lack of an agreement has created legal uncertainty. In May, a European privacy regulator pointed to a 2020 ruling when Meta fine 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) and ordered to stop sending information about Facebook users in the European Union to the United States. Meta, like many businesses, moves data from Europe to the United States, where its headquarters and multiple data centers are located.
Other European privacy regulators have ruled that services provided by US companies, including Google Analytics and MailChimp, may violate Europeans’ privacy because they have transferred data through the United States.
The problem stems from when Edward Snowden, a former US national security contractor, revealed details of how the US foreign surveillance apparatus exploited data stored by telecommunications and technology companies. USA. Under laws such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, US intelligence agencies may seek to access data about international users from companies for national security purposes.
Following the disclosure, an Austrian privacy activist, Max Schrems, began a legal challenge arguing that Facebook’s storage of his data in the United States violated his European privacy he. The European Union’s top court has agreed to annul two previous transatlantic data-sharing treaties.
On Monday, Mr. Schrems said he plans to sue again.
“Just announcing that something is ‘new’, ‘powerful’ or ‘effective’ is not enough to dismiss it before the Court of Justice,” Mr Schrems said in a statement, referring to the court. leader of the European Union. “We would need changes in US surveillance law to make this work — and we simply don’t have it.”
Members of the European Parliament have criticized the deal. Parliament has no direct role in the negotiations, but passed a non-binding resolution in May saying the deal did not provide adequate protection.
Birgit Sippel, a European lawmaker with the Social and Democratic group, specializing in civil liberties issues, said: “The framework does not provide any meaningful protections against abuses. indiscriminate surveillance by US intelligence agencies. “This lack of protection leaves Europeans’ personal data vulnerable to mass surveillance, undermining their privacy.”
Mr. Reynders said people should wait to test the new policy in practice.
He said the new framework would establish a system through which Europeans could raise concerns with the US government. First, Europeans who suspect that an American intelligence agency is collecting their data unfairly must file a complaint with their national data protection regulator. After further review, the authorities will refer the matter to US officials in a process that may eventually reach a new review panel.
Ms. Raimondo said this month that the US Justice Department had determined that 27 European Union countries would have access to tools that would allow them to complain about abuses of their rights. She said the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has also confirmed that intelligence agencies have added protections established at Biden’s orders.
“This represents the culmination of many months of significant cooperation between the United States and the EU and reflects our shared commitment to facilitating data flows,” Ms. Raimondo said in a recent statement. data between our respective jurisdictions while protecting privacy rights and personal data.”
