• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, July 11, 2023

European regulators have approved a new privacy framework intended to allow tech companies to transfer Europeans' data to America.

“The new EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework will ensure safe data flows for Europeans and bring legal certainty to companies on both sides of the Atlantic,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated Monday.

European Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders added: “Personal data can now flow freely and safely from the European Economic Area to the United States without any further conditions.”

Two prior trans-Atlantic privacy deals were struck down by Europe's highest court, which ruled in 2015 and again in 2020 that the arrangements didn't adequately protect Europeans because the United States allows the government to monitor communications.

The EU's approval comes more than one year after officials on both sides of the Atlantic agreed to the framework, and around six months after President Joe Biden issued an executive order implementing the framework. Biden's order provided that the U.S. government could only conduct surveillance “in pursuit of defined national security objectives,” including assessing foreign military capabilities, understanding threats that affect global security, and protecting against terrorism. The order also prohibited surveillance for some purposes, including suppression of criticism, or disadvantaging people based on their ethnicity, race, religion or gender.

It's not yet clear whether the new framework will be upheld by Europe's highest court. Privacy advocate Max Schrems -- who successfully opposed the prior two trans-Atlantic pacts -- made clear this week that he plans to also challenge the new agreement.

“We have various options for a challenge already in the drawer, although we are sick and tired of this legal ping-pong,” Schrems stated this week. “We currently expect this to be back at the Court of Justice by the beginning of next year.”

Nyob (standing for none of your business), the organization he founded, said the new framework “is largely a copy of the failed” prior agreement.

“Despite the European Commission's public relations efforts, there is little change in US law or the approach taken by the EU,” the group stated. “The fundamental problem ... was not addressed by the US, as the US still takes the view that only US persons are worthy of constitutional rights.”