Security News > 2023 > February > EU lawmakers argue against signing US data-transfer pact

Lawmakers in the European Parliament have urged the European Commission not to issue the "Adequacy decision" needed for the EU-US Data Privacy Framework to officially become the pipeline for data to freely flow from the EU to the States.

European rules around privacy, data collection, and data subjects' rights are considerably stronger than those in America, hence the need for rules of engagement that make US companies' treatment of EU data as good as what they'd get at home.

The DPF was announced in March last year and is meant to address concerns raised by the EU's Court of Justice in Schrems II, a 2020 case that struck down the so-called Privacy Shield data protection arrangements between the political bloc and the US. EU president Ursula von der Leyen and US president Joe Biden said they'd reached an agreement in principle on the framework for transatlantic data flows at the time, with Biden signing an executive order on the matter in October last year.

According to the motion filed this week, the latest Data Privacy Framework still falls far short of the General Data Protection Regulation standard EU residents could expect from companies that are regulated within the bloc.

The committee also pointed out that "Unlike all other third countries that have received an adequacy decision under the GDPR, the US still does not have a federal data protection law." That matters when principles around any "Limits" imposed on US SigInt work "Will be interpreted solely in the light of US law and legal traditions," it said.

Among other things, Europeans can lodge grievances with the Data Protection Review Court if they believe their personal data was collected in violation of applicable US law.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/02/17/adequacy_decision_us_data_transfer/