On Tuesday 10 January, the Commissioner for Justice, Vera Jourova, presented a communication on the protection of personal data in an international context. In this perspective, she suggested beginning discussions to develop new personal data transfer frameworks with third countries and for them to remain “positive” on the outcome of the decisions previously taken, such as that on the “privacy shield” concluded between the EU/US under the Obama administration.
This communication, “Defines a strategic approach on the issue of international personal data transfers. It will facilitate trade and promote better cooperation in coercive areas, whilst ensuring strict data protection”.
The Commission is seeking to immediately negotiate adequacy decisions with South Korea and Japan and possibly interested Latin American countries. Adequacy decisions will enable European companies and administrations to transfer personal data to third countries that the Commission believes have an an adequate and equivalent level of protection to that in the EU.
This kind of decision was adopted by it, for example, for the US beginning in 2000 with the “Safe Harbour” mechanism, followed by the “privacy shield” in 2016. In this regard, the Commissioner says that she is very optimistic about the Trump administration maintaining this mechanism, which compels companies such as Facebook and Google to comply with certain data protection rules. The new mechanism also envisages stricter access for US national security agencies to data transferred in the trade arena.
Vera Jourova would like to go to US as soon as the Trump administration is set up, to explain to her counterparts the benefits of this “privacy shield”.
In the criminal justice field, the Commission also intends to promote framework agreements such as the transatlantic framework agreement on data protection setting out general protection standards for data transfers between the EU and US legal and the law-enforcement agencies.
In its communication, the Commission indicates that it is committed to working with its international partners to strengthen the level of data protection by encouraging them, for example, to ratify Convention 108 of the Council of Europe and its additional protocol, the Convention for the Protection of Persons in the context of automated processing of personal data. The Commissioner added, “35 countries are currently drawing up legislation on data protection and we can therefore possibly offer our expertise” or act as a reference in this regard. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)