News: European Personal Data

Due to excessive US oversight, the EU High Court annulled the Privacy Shield data exchange system between the EU and the US.

The controversy began back in 2013 when it became clear that a number of US privacy laws (in particular, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) directly contradicts fundamental laws recognized in Europe, which give citizens the rights to privacy and data protection.

As a result of the litigation, the EU High Court concluded that the US national security, public interest, and the US law enforcement requirements prevail, which facilitates interference with the fundamental rights of individuals whose data is transferred to this third country, and that mechanisms in “Privacy Shields” designed to mitigate this interference do not meet the required EU legal standard.

It should be noted that we are talking about the mass outsourcing of data processing from the EU to the USA. Thus, one of the factors that influenced the decision was the fact that more and more companies began to switch to the regional processing of European users' data.

The cancellation of the data exchange system will lead to the fact that thousands of companies using the Privacy Shield will have to look for other ways to protect the personal data of their users. In this regard, the US Secretary of Commerce said that the cancellation of the agreement does not cancel the obligations that the companies using the "Shield" undertook.