Computer Weekly, July 16, 2020

By Bill Goodwin

Europe’s highest court today struck out the EU-US Privacy Shield agreement, overturning the legal basis that allows more than half a million US companies to exchange data with Europe.

The court upheld the validity of another legal mechanism, standard contractual clauses (SCCs), which allow European companies to legally share data with the US and other countries – but added caveats to their use.

SCCs are used to transfer data from the EU to some 180 countries, including Australia, Singapore, South Korea, Brazil, India and Mexico, according to the Business Software Alliance (BSA).

“Today’s Privacy Shield decision just removed from the table one of the few, and most trusted, ways to transfer data across the Atlantic,” said Thomas Boué, director general of the BSA.

“The impacts will be felt by large and small enterprises on both side of the Atlantic, when businesses are focused on recovering from the economic impacts of Covid-19 and are increasingly relying on data-driven tools and services to do so,” he said.

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Original Posting: https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252486234/Schrems-v-Facebook-European-court-strikes-down-EU-US-Privacy-Shield-agreement