Washington DC — E.U. and U.S. officials meet in Washington Monday and Tuesday for the first annual review of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, the recently implemented framework for transatlantic transfers of commercial data.
Representatives of the European Commission, U.S. Commerce and Justice Departments and a dozen other agencies will be examining how the new agreement’s strengthened privacy safeguards are working in practise. Within its first year of existence already nearly 2500 businesses from almost every sector have committed to the framework’ strict requirements allowing them to transfer data across the Atlantic for a range of commercial purposes. In anticipation of the annual review, CCIA members joined with dozens of other Privacy Shield-certified businesses in completing a voluntary survey organized by the European Commission to gauge the implementation and early outcomes of Privacy Shield’s protections.
The Computer & Communications Industry Association has been a longtime advocate for stronger privacy safeguards for data transfers and we welcome the Privacy Shield annual review. The following can be attributed to CCIA President & CEO Ed Black:
“EU and U.S. negotiators had the wisdom to include review clauses to continuously assess and improve Privacy Shield, and this first meeting is an opportunity to ensure the process is working.”
The following can be attributed to CCIA Europe Vice President, Christian Borggreen:
“Commercial data transfers are essential to Europe’s increasingly digitised economy. We welcome this first review of Privacy Shield which thousands of small and medium-sized companies rely on.”