President Biden on Friday signed an executive order giving Europeans the ability to protest if they believe their personal information is caught in America’s online surveillance network. This is an important step towards reaching broader agreement on digital data flows.
The order imposes new limits on electronic surveillance by US intelligence agencies. In addition, Europeans can lodge a complaint with officials in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence if they believe their information has been collected in a manner that violates standards or U.S. law. They were finally able to file a lawsuit with a new independent review body, the Data Protection Review Court.
With this announcement, the United States and the European Union will allow companies to transfer digital data (such as information that powers Facebook’s services and informs Google about sites you visit) across the Atlantic without violating European privacy laws. We were close to an agreement that would allow us to transfer.
US companies say they need a deal to continue doing business in Europe and boost economic activity. The privacy activist has successfully sued to have two of his earlier agreements rescinded, claiming they failed to adequately protect Europeans from overreach by U.S. intelligence services. Since then, officials in Washington and Brussels have been keen to reach a new deal.
The deal with the European Union “allows for the continued flow of data that underpins more than $1 trillion in cross-border trade and investment each year,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimond said at a press conference Thursday. .
The executive order came when former national security contractor Edward Snowden released details about how America’s foreign surveillance equipment made use of data stored by American technology and telecommunications companies. This is the latest development in the discussion that began in
After these revelations, a privacy activist appeared before the Supreme Court of Europe, claiming that Facebook’s storage of his data in the United States violated his rights. The court agreed and voided the agreement that allowed the flow of data. Activist Max Schrems also filed a lawsuit to nullify the next iteration of the agreement, forcing officials in Washington and Brussels to reach the latest deal.
While they were negotiating, several European privacy regulators said American services, including Google Analytics and MailChimp, moved data through the United States, potentially violating Europeans’ privacy rights. I ruled that there is.
Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced in March that they had reached an “agreement in principle.” Biden said at the time that the deal included “unprecedented protections for data privacy and the security of citizens.” It took months for the White House to issue an executive order.
Privacy activists may decide to file a lawsuit to overrule it again.
Privacy activist Schrems said his group “will be analyzing this package in detail, which will take several days.”
“At first glance, it looks like the core issue has not been resolved,” he said, adding that the issue would likely be brought to the European courts “sooner or later”.
