pproves US Data Sharing Agreement

The European Union approved a plan that allows companies to continue storing data on Europeans in servers located in the U.S. The E.U.-U.S. Data privacy Framework agreement ensures that data will not be disrupted between the two regions.

Why it’s needed. A court in the EU ruled in 2020 that an earlier data transfer agreement was illegal, because EU residents had no way to effectively challenge the surveillance of their personal data by US government. Years of negotiations have gone into a new agreement.

What does it do? Europeans have the right to object under this new agreement if they feel that their personal data has been improperly collected by American intelligence agencies. These objections will then be heard by a group of independent American judges, the Data Protection Review Court.

Dig deeper: EU ruling against Facebook is a major blow to the first-party data use

In a press release, EU President Ursula von der Leyen stated that the U.S. had made unprecedented commitments in order to create the new framework. “Today, we are taking an important step in reaffirming our shared values, establishing trust among citizens, deepening our economic ties with the U.S. and ensuring their data security. This shows that we can solve the most complex problems by working together.

What is required? U.S. Companies will be required to adhere to a set of detailed privacy obligations. These obligations include the deletion of personal data that is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was originally collected and ensuring continuity in protection when data is shared with a third party.

Why we care. Let’s put aside for the moment, the differences in data privacy laws between EU and US. The laissez faire attitude of the United States is a result of ineffective legislation, not legal doctrine. Europe has, on the contrary, developed policies and laws that are based on an individual’s right to control their own personal data.

The clash has been costly for U.S. companies. Meta was fined $1.3billion earlier this year for storing Europeans’ information on U.S. server. Despite the fact that this issue has been resolved (Meta will still be required to pay the fine), EU regulators have tightened the rules regarding the use of data. The more these two systems diverge from each other, the more expensive and difficult marketing will be.

EU approves US Data Sharing Agreement first appeared on MarTech.