MOSCOW (Sputnik), Alexander Mosesov — On Tuesday, the European Commission said that Brussels and Washington agreed on a new data transfer deal regulating information flows across the Atlantic to substitute the 2000 EU-US Safe Harbor agreement, which the European Court of Justice (CJEU) invalidated in October 2015 because it was deemed to provide inadequate personal data protection.
“The rights we have under data protection, such as the right to obtain and correct our personal data, need to be legally enforceable in the USA, for every EU citizen. There seems to be great reluctance to introduce these rights in full in the USA for Europeans,” Killock said, commenting on the new deal.
"Unless both the EU and [the] US face up to the need to protect our individual data protection rights, it will end up back in court,” he stressed.
According to the European Commission, the new EU-US data transfer deal imposes stronger obligations on US companies to protect the personal data of European users to be monitored and enforced by the US Department of Commerce and Federal Trade Commission.
The new deal prevents US public authorities gaining "generalized access" to the personal data of European citizens, which will be monitored by an EU-US annual joint review, it stipulates enhanced cooperation between the EU data protection authorities and their US counterparts, while European citizens who suspect their personal data may have been misused have an option under the agreement to file their privacy-related complaint with several authorities, including a new dedicated Ombudsperson.
In addition, the deal requires Washington to make a written commitment not to conduct indiscriminate mass surveillance of the personal data transferred from the European Union.
