Meeting in plenary session in Brussels on Thursday 1 December, the European Parliament approved by a large majority (481 votes in favour, 75 against and 88 abstentions) the draft framework agreement between the EU and the USA on the protection of personal data. This sets the standards for data protection in all agreements relating to police and judicial cooperation, like the transfer of PNR (passenger name record) data or the SWIFT/TFTP agreement on bank data.
This framework agreement, for which negotiations began in 2011, covers the transfer of all data of a personal nature (like name, address or police record) exchanged between the EU and the USA for the purposes of preventing and detecting criminal offences, investigations and legal proceedings, including with regard to terrorism, the Parliament states.
"In the end, during the exchange of data between police and enforcement agencies, we will obtain high and binding standards as well as robust rights for citizens from both sides of the Atlantic", the rapporteur Jan Philipp Albrecht (Greens/EFA, Germany) stated. "After six years of negotiations, we have raised data protection to a new level with the USA. Citizens' fundamental rights will be better protected than is currently the case with the simple mutual recognition of standards that are not very high", he added.
The agreement will guarantee that citizens on both sides of the Atlantic have the right to be informed should there be any violation with regard to security of their data. They will also have the right to ask for the rectification of incorrect information and to pursue legal recourse. The agreement also provides for limits on the further transfer of data and on the length of time data can be kept.
Two political groups had asked for an appeal to the EU Court of Justice for it to rule on the compatibility of the framework agreement with the treaties, but these requests were rejected.
The European commissioner in charge of the issue, Vera Jourova, welcomed the vote and described it as "historic". This agreement will, in her opinion, introduce a high level of protection for this type of cooperation with the USA, which is more than ever necessary.
The ALDE Group was doubtful about the compatibility of the agreement with the EU treaties. "We were the first to ask for an agreement on data protection with the USA. A raft of standards was clearly needed and this agreement constitutes significant progress in this direction", Sophia in't Veld (ALDE, Netherlands) said in a press release. However, in her opinion, the legal concerns persist in the small print of the agreement because while the European Commission considers the commitment of the US government to uphold the agreement to be sufficient, the chances of all the elements of the agreement being enacted effectively are extremely slim, in in't Veld's view. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)