The Court of Justice of the European Union invalidated the data protection agreement between the EU and the United States, which recognized the American data protection regulations’ adequacy, allowing the transfer of personal data from the EU to the US. In a ruling concerning Facebook, the Luxembourg-based court ruled that national legislators should take stricter measures to protect privacy when transferring user data.
Judges expressed concern that data transmitted under the provisions of the EU-US Data Protection Shield "are not limited to information that is strictly necessary" when processing EU citizens' data in the United States. According to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), sensitive data can only be transferred to a country outside the EU if that country provides an equivalent level of data protection. They also warned that American limitations on the protection of personal data are not regulated in a way that meets the requirements under EU law, such as the principle of proportionality. There is no indication in the American regulations that there are guarantees for non-Americans regarding the transfer, use, and study of personal information.
It was also stated the competent supervisory authorities are obliged to suspend or prohibit the transfer of personal data to a non-EU country if they consider that the data protection provisions in that country are not complied with or aren’t sufficiently enforced.
The Court has ruled that the agreement with the United States on the transfer of personal data should be considered null and void because the American data protection regulation does not provide data subjects with essentially the same guarantees as EU law.
However, the European Commission's decision on the general terms and conditions for the transfer of personal data to companies operating in non-EU countries remains valid. This means that in addition to continuing to monitor data transfers, the EU and the United States must develop a new system that ensures that Europeans' data is given the same protection in the United States as in the Union.
Source: MTI