MEPs on the European Parliament’s civil liberties committee said in a non-binding resolution on Thursday 23 March that Privacy Shield, the system for sending personal commercial data to the United States, still has fundamental gaps that need to be urgently resolved. The resolution was adopted, however, by a slender majority (29 to 25 with 1 abstention).
The European Commission should ensure that the EU-United States Privacy Shield, which replaces the former Safe Harbour system, provides sufficient protection of personal data and thus complies with the Charter of Fundamental Rights and new EU data protection rules.
The resolution’s author, Clause Moraes (S&D, United Kingdom) said that the civil liberties committee’s resolution that has just been adopted clearly announces that while Privacy Shield contains significant improvements on Safe Harbuor, major gaps need to be urgently resolved.
Among other concerns expressed by MEPs was the absence of specific rules on the taking of automated decisions, the general right to object and absence of clear principles on protection of privacy applying to data processing companies. MEPs say they are quite concerned about the fact that mass collection of data remains possible for national security and surveillance purposes.
The Ombudsman set up by the US State Department to oversee complaints from European consumers is not sufficiently independent and does not have enough powers to carry out its work, say the MEPs. They also doubt whether Europeans have genuine opportunities for lodging complaints in the US. Privacy Shield came into force in the summer of last year and will be subject to a joint European Commission/US review in the summer of this year. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)