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The EU and the US agreed “in principle” on a new data transfer agreement

The European Union and the United States announced on Friday that they had agreed “in principle” on a new framework for cross-border data transfer, providing relief to tech giants such as Meta and Google.

According to CNBC, for more than a year, officials on both sides of the Atlantic have been working on an agreement to replace the so-called “privacy shield”, a regulation that allows companies to share European data in USA.

The “protection shield” was canceled in July 2020, dealing a blow to Facebook and other companies that had relied on the mechanism for their data flows between the EU and the US. The EU Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Max Srems, an Austrian privacy activist who has argued that the current framework does not protect Europeans from US surveillance.

The new agreement will “allow for a predictable and reliable flow of data between the EU and the US, ensuring the protection of privacy and individual freedoms,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday, without elaborating. for how it will work.

The news of the agreement will offer some respite to Meta and a number of other companies that have faced legal uncertainty about how they move data across borders in the wake of the decision to remove the privacy shield. Meta even suggested that Facebook and Instagram in Europe may need to be shut down over the issue.

“For companies with a presence in both the EU and the US, the ability to securely transfer personal data across the Atlantic and in accordance with applicable data protection rules is crucial for the company,” said Guillaume Couneson, the company’s data protection partner. Linklaters.

However, Couneson warned that it was too early to say whether the new deal would stand the test of time. The Privacy Shield itself has replaced Safe Harbor, an earlier EU-US data exchange pact.

“This new solution must withstand the scrutiny of supervisors and privacy activists who have toppled the previous two,” he said.

Source: Capital

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