Privacy Shield ‘Shaky’, Companies May Choose More Reliable Means

The Privacy Shield agreement on the exchange of commercial data between the European Union and the United States is still a very shaky process, which may prompt its main beneficiaries to resort to more reliable legal means, the executive director of the international advocacy group European Digital Rights (EDRi) told Sputnik.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Privacy Shield is to go live on August 1. The agreement replaces the deal known as the 2000 Safe Harbour, and is aimed at providing a framework for commercial data exchange that will ensure a high level of protection for individuals and legal certainty for businesses operating in the European Union and the United States.

“Privacy Shield is designed to provide a privileged arrangement for companies exporting data to the US. Those are the ones that are expected to benefit, although the process is so shaky, I imagine that they will try to avoid it and use the other available legal bases for such data transfers,” Joe McNamee said.

McNamee said that the Privacy Shield does not significantly change the situation compared with the regime under Safe Harbour.

“Sooner or later, probably sooner, a case will be brought to court against the arrangement. I expect such a case to be successful,” McNamee said.

The draft resolution of the EU-US Privacy Shield was presented by the European Commission in late February, while the European Parliament adopted the resolution on May 26.