President Joe Biden Last week, he signed an executive order to implement a new privacy structure for personal data shared between USA and the Europe.
The news, announced by the White House on Friday, concerns a new framework that could fill a gap that has existed since a European court rejected the previous version from 2020.
At the time, the court considered that the previous system provided the US with excessive advantages in monitoring European data during transfers.
According to the European decision, US surveillance programs lacked adequate measures to allow European citizens to understand how the government collected their data. This case became known as "Schrems II".
The United States seeks to provide greater security in transactions with this agreement.
The agreement, entitled “Privacy Shield 2.0"It seeks to address European concerns about the US's ability to monitor personal data."
“These commitments fully comply with the 2020 Schrems II decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union and will cover transfers of personal data to the United States under EU law.”"said Gina Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce."
The new structure has been under design since March, when the US "They committed to implementing new safeguards to ensure that signals intelligence activities are necessary and proportionate in the pursuit of defined national security objectives."
This new structure will include a new body within the U.S. Department of Justice to oversee how American national security agencies access and use the information of European and American citizens.
Furthermore, it will also grant new powers to officials in the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence. This body oversees the work of the agencies and investigates potential violations of people's privacy rights.
The new structure will have an independent Data Protection sector.
Under this new structure, European citizens will be able to seek redress through an independent Data Protection Review Tribunal, which will be composed of members from outside the U.S. government who have relevant expertise in the areas of data privacy and national security and the authority to adjudicate complaints and impose corrective measures, if necessary.
However, before a matter reaches the Court, the protection officer from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence will conduct an initial investigation into the allegations.
“The EU-US data privacy framework includes a robust commitment to strengthening privacy and civil liberties safeguards for signals intelligence, which will ensure the privacy of EU personal data.”"Gina told reporters on Thursday."
The decree will now be sent to Brussels, where the European Commission will incorporate its own rules into the text.
Nick Clegg, the company's president of global affairs, wrote on Twitter: “We welcome this update to US law, which will help keep the internet open and keep families, businesses, and communities connected, wherever they are in the world.”
Linda Moore, president and CEO of the industrial group TechNet, said in a statement: “We applaud the Biden administration for taking affirmative action to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of cross-border U.S. and European data flows, and we will continue to work with the administration and members of Congress from both parties to pass a federal privacy law.”
“We expect there’s a decent chance someone will try to challenge this in Europe, and I think what the courts will see is that we’ve actually presented a framework that is fundamentally different from what was in place before.”"said one of the Biden administration officials on Thursday."
The process for this new structure should take about six months, and its final publication should occur around March 2023.
