From a Safe Harbor to a Privacy Shield

The recent announcement on a Safe Harbor replacement raises a lot of questions, a data protection lawyer has warned.

Last week, the European Commission announced an agreement with its US counterparts on a replacement for the Safe Harbor framework, under which the US pledged to adhere to EU standards regarding data protection. The European Court of Justice declared Safe Harbor invalid last October. It will be replaced by Privacy Shield.

Nicola Fulford, head of data protection and privacy at Kemp Little, says: “It will provide stronger obligations on US companies to protect the personal data of Europeans.

“While the new agreement is a positive step forwards, it is the first step in a process towards fully implementing the EU-US Privacy Shield on both sides of the Atlantic. The Commission said that the EU-US Privacy Shield will take three months to implement. It remains to be seen how widely the EU-US Privacy Shield will be adopted and how soon EU companies will sign up to it.”