EU publishes legal texts on implementation of EU-U.S. privacy shield

The European Commission on Monday announced it issued the legal texts that would put in place the EU-U.S. privacy shield.

Once adopted, it would guarantee that the safeguards provided when data is transferred under the new EU-U.S. privacy shield are equivalent to data protection standards in the EU, said the Commission.

The Commission made public a draft "adequacy decision" as well as the texts that would constitute the EU-U.S. privacy shield, including principles companies will have to abide by, as well as written commitments by the U.S. government on the enforcement of the arrangement.

As next steps, a committee composed of representatives from EU member states will be consulted and EU data protection authorities will give their opinion, before a final decision by the college of commissioners.

The decision concluding the agreement should be adopted by the European Council after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.

In the meantime, the U.S. side will make the necessary preparations to put in place the new framework, monitoring mechanisms and the new ombudsperson mechanism.

U.S. authorities also provided strong commitments that the privacy shield would be strictly enforced and assured there is no indiscriminate or mass surveillance by national security authorities, noted the press release.

The EU and the United States reached an agreement on the new framework for transatlantic data flows, the EU-U.S. privacy shield, in early February in Strasbourg, France. Endit